


Why'd you have to go and make things so complicated?

by brianmaybrianmay



Category: Generation Kill
Genre: Angst with a Happy Ending, Breaking Up & Making Up, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Falling In Love, First Kiss, First Time, Friends to Lovers, Hook-Up, M/M, One Night Stands, Secret Relationship, War
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-29
Updated: 2020-03-29
Packaged: 2021-02-28 17:29:16
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 55,405
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23380948
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/brianmaybrianmay/pseuds/brianmaybrianmay
Summary: He was startled out of his thoughts by somebody dropping down onto the bar stool next to his own one, and he glanced over at him with an eyebrow raised, "Well don't you just look like the man of my dreams." He teased with a bright grin. "I'm Ray." The guy introduced himself, holding a hand out to Brad who shook it, "And what's a guy like you doing in a place like this?"With four days left before he was deployed to Iraq, Brad figured that one last random hook-up couldn't hurt, right?That was, right up until he met his new platoon - Bravo Two - and realised he'd be sharing a Humvee with the man he'd slept with only days before.
Relationships: Brad Colbert/Ray Person
Comments: 16
Kudos: 81





	Why'd you have to go and make things so complicated?

**Author's Note:**

> thanks so much for reading this guys :)
> 
> I was a little wary of uploading this at all because a LOT of the dialogue throughout the story is word for word from the show itself - so keep it in mind that I didn't write a lot of the dialogue myself. Either way though, I hope you enjoy :)
> 
> as always - this is based on GK and not the real life marines!

If Brad was being totally honest, he wasn't exactly sure what he was doing in this grimy bar. He just knew that he felt uneasy about the whole situation. 

Not that he was specifically out to meet somebody tonight, or maybe he was.. again, he didn't really know. Plus, it was totally a coincidence that the bar he was at tonight happened to be a gay bar. Total coincidence. All he knew was that he was shipping out in four days, and that he didn't even know when he'd be back. 

He was a Marine, a Sergeant in First Recon, and they had now officially gotten their orders that they were being deployed. So, in four days he was heading to Kuwait, and they would be on standby there until they got their orders to relocate to Iraq. Until then though, he was a free man for another four days. Well, not totally a free man - he was pretty sure he'd still get his ass discharged if anyone knew what his intentions were tonight, considering DADT was still very much a thing, but anyway. 

Fuck, maybe he was making a stupid decision coming here tonight, he wasn't even totally sure that he was ready for a one night stand. 

This time three years ago, he'd been totally settled. He and his girlfriend Katie had been happy together - or so he'd thought anyway, right up until she had left him for his best friend. Since then, he hadn't actually been able to commit, to make himself let his guard down enough to start another relationship. Even one night stands, there was always the chance of the other person becoming attached afterwards, and he just.. he couldn't do that. Since Katie, he'd only actually slept with prostitutes. He was so far out of his comfort zone here, but like he'd said; this was one of his last few days of freedom for the foreseeable future, so he may have felt like doing something risky. Now though, he felt a little like hissing at anyone who looked at him for too long. 

Whatever, he knew he had his issues, but at least he could say that he was a damn good Marine. 

He ran his fingers through his hair, swallowing as he watched a bead of condensation running down the side of the pint glass he had in front of him. He wasn't totally sure how he was feeling about the whole situation. Realistically, he knew that he could die over there, that he could be shot, that they could be ambushed, hell, their plane could be shot down on the way over to the Middle East. He knew there was no point in dwelling on any of that though. This was what he'd trained for, what he'd worked for. He'd worked his way up through the ranks to become a Sergeant, and he was damn good at his job. 

He'd be meeting his new Platoon just before they shipped too. He'd already met a couple of the men, their Platoon commander Lieutenant Fick and his Gunnery Sergeant Mike Wynn. They seemed like good guys, he'd be more than happy to be working under them. Their company commander though, Captain Schwetje, he wasn't totally sure what he was supposed to make of him. The guy had asked a lot of questions for somebody who was supposed to be calling the shots. Still, he wouldn't pass judgement yet, maybe he was still a hell of a C.O. It was just a little inconvenient that he'd be meeting the Platoon for the very first time just before they deployed, but they were Marines; they made do. It was just shitty timing that had left Bravo Two-One Alpha without a team leader, and so he'd been transferred over to their unit.

He was startled out of his thoughts by somebody dropping down onto the bar stool next to his own one, and he glanced over at him with an eyebrow raised, "Well don't you just look like the man of my dreams." He teased with a bright grin. 

He wasn't totally sure what to make of the forward approach, but he had to admit that he was a little.. intrigued. The guy looked younger than him, but not young enough that that he didn't look like he should even be in here. His dark hair was cut tight, and he could see various tattoos peeking out from underneath the white t-shirt he was wearing. His dark eyes were incredibly pretty though, as were the dimples that were carved into his cheeks. He maybe had a bit of a soft spot for dimples, not that he'd ever admit that though. 

"I'm Ray." The guy introduced himself, holding a hand out to Brad who shook it, "And what's a guy like you doing in a place like this?" 

"Brad." He answered with a small smile, "And I am drinking." 

"That all? You'll break a few hearts in here if that's the case." Ray teased with another grin, pointedly taking a drink from his glass. Now that he mentioned it actually, Brad was surprised to see that there were a couple of people around the bar who seemed to be looking in their general direction. The idea made him slightly antsy though, because in here? He was just Brad. Outside of here, he was Sergeant Colbert of the Marine Corps - someone who really shouldn't be hanging around in a gay bar. So the idea that somebody had taken notice of him just had him slightly on the edge of his seat.

"I guess I'll have to just see where the night takes me." He answered with a small smile. 

Ray just smiled back at him at that, "You like cocktails, Brad?" 

"I don't dislike them." 

"Well in that case, there's this awesome cocktail joint that's like.. a five minute walk from here, if you'd like to join me and get a cocktail? It's totally your loss if you don't, y'know, I'm a catch. I will forgive you though, because I know you're not aware yet of just how awesome I actually am, but you really would be missing out if you didn't take me up on this offer."

Brad couldn't help the grin that was pulling at the corners of his mouth while he listened to Ray rambling on, because fucking hell, the guy was a motor mouth, but he was attractive, and he'd be lying if he said that he wasn't at least a little bit charmed, "In that case, I suppose I really can't say no." He said with a smile, which Ray returned. 

"Awesome, let's go." He chirped, knocking back the rest of his drink before hopping down off the bar-stool and pulling his jacket back on. He looked good in a leather jacket, Brad had to admit, and he couldn't help the image that strayed into his mind of Ray straddling his motorbike in the leather jacket. It made for an appealing picture anyway. 

He followed him out of the bar, and he started to relax a little the further they got away from it. There was nothing implicating about walking alongside another man to a bar, they simply just looked like friends to anyone that might have recognised him. It was a hell of a lot different than getting caught in a gay bar with another man. 

"So, what's your story?" Ray asked as they walked, and he glanced back down at him. He hadn't actually noticed before, but Ray was a hell of a lot shorter than him actually. He wasn't totally sure, but he put him at about 5'9, 5'10 maybe. He was certainly no taller than 6'0 though. Still, Brad knew that he was tall though, and it wasn't like he had an issue with Ray being shorter than him. 

"I'm from San Diego, I moved up here for work." He answered, biting his lip gently. The move hadn't been too far, but it was just easier to actually live in Oceanside since he was stationed at Camp Pendleton. He didn't actually live on barracks like a lot of the men did, but he was close enough that it wasn't a hassle to get to the base every day. 

"What d'you do for work?" 

"Is this it?" He asked, indicating to the bar they were approaching with the neon pink sign in the window. 

"Oh, yeah, awesome." 

He was glad for the distraction actually, because he really didn't want to have to admit to Ray that he was a Marine, because then he'd have to admit that he was breaking all sorts of rules by even being here with him in the first place. Thankfully Ray didn't seem too put off by the way he'd avoided the question, and he just smiled as he walked into the bar with him. 

The cocktail bar was.. pretty much exactly what he'd expected. There was a distinctly Caribbean theme going on, but more neon lights than he'd expected. The place was most definitely tacky though, and Ray looked as though he was right at home. They grabbed two seats by the bar and Ray shrugged out of his jacket again before leaning across the bar to the bartender that approached them, "Hey, Trina. Two Sex on the Beach, please." He ordered, before turning back to Brad, "Have you ever had Sex on the Beach? And I do mean that in both senses of the phrase." He said with a grin. 

"Sadly, no. In both cases."

"Well, we're about to change one of your answers right now. Maybe both, if the night pans out well." 

He couldn't help but laugh at that, and Ray just smiled back at him. Yeah, fuck it, the little shit was charming as hell. 

It turned out, that it worked out quite well that Ray spoke a fucking mile a minute, because it seemed that he was more than happy to just talk at Brad without actually asking him too many personal questions. He wasn't sure if he'd just picked up on the fact that he didn't want to answer any personal questions, or he just didn't want to ask, but it worked out for him either way. 

He learned that Ray was twenty-two, that he was originally from Nevada, Missouri but had moved up here a while ago. And of course he learned other meaningless little pieces of information here and there, like how he used to be in a band and they'd opened for Limp Bizkit but they'd sucked, and how he had a degree in electrical engineering. One thing he couldn't help but notice though, was that despite the fact that Ray played up to the stupid hick thing, that he was actually smart as a whip once he got going. Yeah, fuck, Brad actually liked the kid. 

Obviously they didn't stop at the one cocktail either, they took it in turns ordering from the bar until it mostly became a competition to see who could order the one with the worst name - Brad thought he'd had it once he ordered two shots called the 'Haemorrhage', but he'd gladly admit defeat once Ray ordered them two 'Slippery Nipples'. 

Before he really even knew what time it was, the bar was closing, and he was pretty fucking drunk, "End the night on one more?" Ray asked with a grin, sliding a shot of tequila across the bar to him, complete with a lime wedge and a packet of salt. Obviously he wasn't about to say no to that. 

So he took the salt, licked the back of his hand, and Ray stopped him just before he was about to pour it over the back of his hand, "Ladies first." He teased with a grin, before pulling Brad's hand over to him instead. He turned his hand over though, sprinkling the salt over the inside of his wrist rather than over the back of his hand. And fuck, Brad was pretty sure he couldn't be held accountable for the hard-on he was suddenly sporting as he watched Ray drag his tongue over the line of salt on his wrist, filthy grin on his lips while he did it. He didn't make a big show of knocking back the shot itself, although he did pop Brad's lime wedge into his mouth afterwards rather than his own   
one. 

When he held the lime in his mouth afterwards, and raised an eyebrow in Brad's direction, he was pretty sure that he got with the picture. After quickly doing the salt and the shot, he grinned as he leaned across to pluck the lime wedge from Ray's mouth with his own, leaving him with just the barest swipe of tongue as he sucked the lime into his own mouth.

"Fucking hell, I've never been happier to see a bar closing in my life." Ray murmured, biting his lip gently as he looked over at Brad. If he was being honest though, neither had he, "C'mon." Ray told him as he hopped down off his own bar stool, pulling his jacket back on. 

He followed him outside, biting his lip gently as he walked alongside him. He wasn't totally sure what the next step was supposed to be, did they just start walking in one general direction until they came to one of their houses? Did Ray not actually want to sleep with him and they'd just part ways here? Thankfully, his question was answered for him when Ray hooked his arm through his as they passed an alleyway, dragging him down it. Once they were about halfway down the alley, Ray backed him up against the wall and arched up on his toes to press their lips together in a kiss. He didn't take long to get with the program and he pulled Ray close as he kissed him back, sliding his hands around to his hips to hold him there. 

"Fuck." Ray breathed after a moment, his mouth still mostly pressed against Brad's, "I know I promised you sex on the beach, but I'm pretty sure that's how you get arrested for public nudity or whatever. And I kinda.. don't really have my own place up here yet that I can take you back to, but I'm more than willing to go get a crappy motel room for the night if that's what it takes to get you naked right now." 

"Ray.. Ray, shut up." He murmured, his own mouth trailing over the sharp curve of the younger man's jaw, "My place isn't far from here." He told him. Maybe it was a mistake, bringing Ray back to where he lived, but fuck, he really just wanted to get him in to bed as soon as possible. 

So he lead them in the direction of his house, which really wasn't all that far a walk - it probably would have taken them half the time that they took if they'd just gone straight there, but obviously they hadn't been able to resist stopping every couple of minutes to get their hands or their mouths on each other. It was a stupid fucking idea really, considering they were out in the open where anyone could see them. He was counting on the fact that it was the middle of the night though, that it was dark - plus he was pretty drunk, so his inhibitions were maybe lowered just a little. Ray was gorgeous too, so it was hard not to touch. 

They finally made it to his house though, which just so happened to be very close to Camp Pendleton. He'd noticed Ray glancing in the direction of the front gates as they'd passed, but he guessed that it was probably just pretty interesting to a civilian. Still, he didn't say anything though, because he was hoping that Ray assumed that he was a civilian too.

Once they reached his doorstep, he grinned as he attempted to fish his keys out of his pocket and unlock the door, although it wasn't the easiest feat considering he was drunk and Ray had plastered himself to his back and was letting his hands roam freely, "I suppose it's probably a waste of my breath to ask you to keep your hands to yourself until we're inside?" He asked, although he was grinning as he looked back over his shoulder at Ray. 

"Shit, homes, I'm barely keeping it in my pants at this point." He said, letting his hands run up Brad's stomach underneath the t-shirt he was wearing.

Thankfully, it didn't take him too much longer to get the door open, and he had barely shut it behind them before he had Ray pressed back against the wall and had pressed their lips together in another kiss. The younger man just arched up against him again, draping his arms around Brad's to pull him down to his height as he kissed him back. The kiss quickly turned filthy, with their tongues in each others' mouths and their hands starting to roam again, "Where's your bedroom?" Ray asked, tipping his head back against the wall as Brad dragged his mouth down over the tendon in his neck. 

Without actually answering him, he instead ducked down and hooked his hands underneath Ray's thighs, lifting him up onto his hips. Ray got with the program thankfully, and wrapped his legs around Brad's hips, his arms still draped around his neck, "Holy shit, do you even realise how goddamn hot that was?" He asked, and Brad just huffed in amusement as he walked through to his bedroom while trying his best to keep his mouth on any part of Ray that he could reach from here. 

When he got to his bedroom, he deposited Ray on the bed, although he was quickly dragged down onto the bed too. He didn't argue, just let himself be dragged down on top of Ray and he pressed their lips together again as the younger man wrapped his legs around his hips again, "Get this off." He breathed, pulling back just far enough that he could pull up the hem of Ray's t-shirt until he pulled it off the rest of the way. With his t-shirt off, Brad could see the tattoos that he'd gotten a peek of earlier, and shit.. they just made Ray even more attractive. There were a pair of stars on either side of his chest, 'no dice' written in the middle of his chest in curly writing, plus the several different ones adorning his arms.. they were really fucking hot actually. Plus, he wasn't fit in that huge bulky sort of way, but it was obvious that there were ropes of muscle underneath his wiry frame. 

"Don't think you're getting out of stripping, by the way, I felt those abs and that's an image I want burned into my brain for the rest of my life." Ray groused, although he had a grin on his lips. 

At that, Brad sat back a little so that he could strip out of his own t-shirt, and he couldn't help but feel a little self-satisfied at the hungry look in Ray's eyes as he looked him up and down. He knew he was attractive, he wasn't about to lie about that. He'd worked for his body though, so he was allowed to be just a little smug when somebody obviously liked what they saw in him. 

"Fuck, I knew you were cut, but you're basically a Greek fucking God." Ray breathed, trailing his fingers over the taut muscles of his stomach again. Before he knew what had really happened, he found himself on his back with Ray over him, straddling his hips. Alright, it seemed that the younger man was stronger than he looked, despite the fact that he was over half a foot shorter than him. He ran his fingers through Ray's short hair when the younger man leaned down to press his mouth to his neck, and he couldn't help the way his breath hitched as Ray rolled his hips down against his. 

"Can I blow you?" Ray asked after a moment, his mouth still pressed to Brad's collarbone. 

"Depends." He murmured, wrapping a hand around the back of Ray's neck to hold him where he was as he dragged his teeth against the bone, "Can I fuck you after?" 

Ray moaned softly at that, and he pulled back just enough that he could look down at Brad, "You're gonna be the death of me." He murmured as he fitted his palm around the curve of his jaw, letting his thumb press against Brad's lower lip. He simply looked up at Ray with a heavily lidded gaze as he parted his lips to let Ray's thumb into his mouth, pressing his tongue against the pad of his thumb. 

"Shit.." Ray murmured as he watched Brad, pressing his hips down into his again, "Get naked, right fucking now." 

He didn't waste any time at that, and neither did Ray, as they both scrambled to lose the rest of their clothes as quickly as possible. By the time they finally had, Ray had him pressed down into the mattress again, but instead of leaning back up to him again, he made his way down his body instead, his teeth scraping over the muscles in his stomach and across his hipbones. 

"Saw you in that bar tonight and obviously I realised you were fucking hot, but you're something else." He said quietly as he busied himself with wrapping his fingers around Brad's cock and slowly starting to stroke him. 

"Ray.. please."

"Please what?"

When he looked back down at Ray, the younger man had a teasing grin on his face. He just slid his hand over his hair, despite the fact that there really wasn't enough for him to really get his fingers through, his breath hitching as Ray continued to work him with his own hand. 

"Please stop being a little bitch, and make good on your promise." 

Ray gave a brief, delighted little laugh, before doing as Brad asked and closing his mouth around his cock. He settled for running his hand over his hair again, his lower lip caught between his teeth as he watched Ray bobbing his head. 

It was maybe a little daunting though, because it wasn't too hard to guess that Ray had experience here, that he knew what he was doing. He, on the other hand, he was maybe a little out of his depth. The last person had properly been with had been Katie, and since then he'd only ever slept with hookers. He'd never had the balls to actually ask for a man before either; so the fact remained that he'd never actually slept with a man before. So he was just a little nervous that Ray would expect the same sort of experience from him. He tried not to think too hard about it though, and instead just focused on what was going on right now. 

Ray had his hand wrapped around what he couldn't fit into his mouth, and he kept his eyes on Brad as he bobbed his head up and down, filthy grin on his lips as he dragged his tongue up the length of his cock before swallowing him back down again. 

After a couple of minutes of this, where Ray dragged him closer and closer to the edge with his mouth and his tongue, he eventually pressed his fingers hard into the meat of the other man's bare shoulder, "Ray.. stop, stop." He gritted out, blinking against the white of the ceiling as he tried to get himself under control. He really hadn't wanted him to stop, and it had taken every ounce of self-control he had in himself to ask him to stop, but he had other plans for the night, and he really didn't want Ray to end up sucking his brains out through his cock before he had a chance to go through with them. 

Ray pulled off with a grin, biting his lip gently with a grin as he crawled back up the bed to Brad until he was hovering over him again, "You gonna fuck me until I can't see straight?" He asked, dipping his head down to press a light kiss against his lips. 

"That's the plan." He murmured between kisses, although he let them linger for a little while longer, "Get on your back." He said against his lips, waiting until Ray had done what he was told before reaching over and rummaging in the drawer of his nightstand for the lube and condoms that he knew were in there. 

Once he'd retrieved them, he settled back between Ray's spread legs, grinning as he looked down at him, "You're fucking gorgeous." He remarked, trailing his hand down until he'd reached the back of Ray's knee, pulling his leg up around his hips. Well yeah, he knew Ray had been basically waxing poetic about his own abs, but it wasn't like the younger man was leaving a lot to be desired regarding his own physique either. He was short and he was wiry, but he was lean in that way that indicated he'd put the work in too. Plus with his dark eyes and tattoos and dimples, Brad was maybe a little gone. 

Ray just huffed in amusement, trailing his own fingers over Brad's short hair, "Come on, on with the fucking." He teased with a grin. 

He didn't drag it out too long as he prepared Ray, pressing one slick finger into him to start with, and then adding a second and a third once he was sure that he could take it without it hurting him. He was still under the impression that Ray had done this before though, so he tried not to treat him as though he was made of glass. Soon enough, Ray was pressing back against his fingers, his breath ragged and his abdomen muscles taut. Fuck, he really was a sight. 

"I'm ready, Brad, fuck.. come on." He insisted, his own fingers pressing in where they were gripping Brad's shoulders, hard enough to bruise. 

"You're sure?"

"Yes I'm fucking sure, come on."

He didn't argue with that, just pulled his fingers out and quickly wiped them on the sheets before sitting back on his hunches again so that he could roll the condom onto his own cock. Once he had done that, he leaned over Ray again, letting the younger man wrap his legs around his hips the way he had done before. "Last chance to back out?" He asked, biting his lip gently as he lined himself up. 

Ray just rolled his eyes, draping his arms around his neck too, "Why would I back out? You're like a walking wet dream."

He huffed out a breath of laughter at that, although that was all the response he gave before he started to slowly push into him. The grin slipped off Ray's face then and he closed his eyes, dropping his head back to the pillow with a soft moan, "Jesus, Brad.." He gasped, hitching one of his legs a little higher up around Brad's hips to give him more room to move. 

He slowly inched his way in, trying his best to give Ray time to adjust before he moved any more. He couldn't help leaning down to press his mouth to Ray's skin again, trailing his lips lightly along his collarbone and up the length of his neck as he inched his way in, "Are you okay?" He asked quietly when he reached the sensitive point behind his ear, pressing a soft kiss to the skin there. He'd noticed though that Ray had gone quiet, and he certainly didn't want to just go for it if he was hurting him. 

"Yeah, I'm good, it's just-" He huffed quietly, biting his lip gently as blinked up at the ceiling, "Your cock is huge."

"Am I hurting you?"

"A little." He admitted, before groaning low in his throat as he shifted his hips, "Feels good though, just give me a second." He told him. Brad nodded and leaned down to kiss him instead, hoping to distract him from the pain with his tongue in his mouth. They just kissed for a few moments, and he could feel Ray start to relax into it as they kissed. Eventually he hummed against Brad's mouth, bringing his hands up to cup his face between them, "I'm ready, c'mon."

He didn't waste any time in arguing, just dragged his mouth down to Ray's neck instead as he started to slowly rock his hips. Ray huffed out a breath, and he could feel Ray's fingers pressing into the back of his neck as he nipped gently at the skin of his neck, "You feel so good, Ray.." He breathed. 

He kept the same pace for a short while, focusing more on keeping his mouth on any part of Ray that he could reach from here while slowly rocking his hips. Eventually though, he could feel the younger man's heel digging into the back of his thigh, "Come on, Brad." He whined, his head pressed back into the pillow, "Fuck me like you mean it."

He responded by snapping his hips sharply, and he couldn't help but grin at the breathless moan his action drew from the other man, "Like that?" He asked as he braced himself on his elbows, looking down at Ray as he continued to snap his hips forward. 

"Fuck.. yeah, Brad.. just like that. Sh- it." He gasped, and there were his fingers digging into Brad's skin again, at the back of his shoulderblades now rather than the meat of his shoulders. 

He'd already been pretty close to the edge before they'd even started, and he could feel himself rapidly approaching that edge again as he continued to fuck Ray at the same punishing pace. It seemed the younger man had no problems with that though, if the way he was panting and gripping onto Brad was any indication. He pulled Brad back down after a moment to press their lips together again in another messy kiss, although they ended up more just panting against each others' mouths after a moment of this. He shifted his hips after a moment, and the change in angle drew a high keening noise from Ray's throat, and his knees clenched tight around Brad's hips. 

"Oh.. fuck, right there." He gasped, his mouth hanging open against Brad's mouth. 

He tried his best to continue to hit that same spot inside Ray, before reaching down at the same time to wrap his fingers around Ray's cock, jerking him off in time with his thrusts. He barely had to pump his wrist three or four times before the younger man was coming, arching his back up off the bed as he did. The sight of Ray with his back arched and flush high on his cheeks was just what Brad needed to push himself over the edge too, and he stilled as he came just after Ray, groaning low in his throat against the younger man's neck. 

For a moment, there was silence in the room other than the sound of them both trying to catch their breath, and after a minute he felt Ray's fingers gently trailing along the length of his back, the cooling sweat on his lower back making him shiver, "Are you okay?" He asked, doing his best to muster enough energy just to pull himself up and out of Ray, collapsing next to him on the bed once he had. 

"Yeah, damn. That might have been the best sex of my entire life."

He smiled at that, reaching out to grab the first piece of clothing he came across to clean them up a little - he was pretty sure it was Ray's t-shirt rather than his own, but he didn't bother trying to figure it out before he dropped it back to the ground, quickly peeling off the condom too and tossing it in the bin in the corner of the room. Once he'd done that, he settled back down next to Ray, and he could feel even through the maybe half a foot of distance left between them that the younger man was still shaking from the intensity of his orgasm. 

So he just draped his arm around Ray's waist, closing his eyes as he pressed his cheek against his shoulder. 

"I'll go in a minute, just give me a couple of minutes to make sure my legs are still working." Ray mumbled, although he sounded like he was already half asleep. 

"You can stay, if you want."

"Yeah?"

"Yeah, stay." He told him, pressing a quick kiss to his shoulder before settling back down again. Maybe he'd regret it in the morning, because this was one of the reasons that he always called for a prostitute rather than hooking up at a bar. It was simple, there were no strings attached, he gave the girl her money and then she left, and that was that. Now, he found that he actually wanted Ray to stay the night. Still, he knew that this couldn't become anything. He liked the younger man, and it seemed they were pretty fantastic in bed together, but in less than a week he'd be halfway across the world - for how long, he didn't even know. He could be home in a month, it could be a year. So yeah, this really couldn't become anything, but maybe letting himself have it for one more day couldn't do any harm.

"I'll make you breakfast in the morning." He added after a moment, and he could feel rather than hear the soft huff of laughter Ray let out at that, before he curled in close against Brad and tucked his head underneath his chin. 

"I want eggs, and bacon." He told him, and Brad just smiled as he pulled him slightly closer, before letting sleep wash over him.

  
-x-

  
When he woke up the next morning, there was half a moment where Brad didn't think anything out of the ordinary when he woke up alone in his bed.

He was warm and comfortable, and despite the slight ache in his lower back and the niggling headache that was proof of how much he'd drank last night, he was more than happy to just settle back down here and not move for another couple of hours. He didn't have to be on base until later on that evening, so he could afford to sleep in a little. He was to be meeting the other Bravo Two team leaders when he went in, Sergeants Patrick and Lovell, he already knew Tony Espera, so that was a bonus. He wouldn't be meeting the rest of the men until the day they deployed. It was only when he realised that he could smell coffee that he remembered; oh fuck, he'd asked Ray to stay over last night. 

He hadn't thought twice about it last night, Ray had actually offered to leave and he'd still asked him to stay. It seemed that he didn't have to think about it though, because it seemed that Ray had made himself scarce before he'd even woken up. Sucked a little, but maybe it was better that way. 

On that note, he yawned as he dragged himself up and out of the bed, trying his best to ignore his aching muscles as he did. He quickly located his jeans and pulled them back on, although there was no sign of his t-shirt, so he figured he'd just forego it. It was his house anyway, he didn't need to wear a shirt walking around. When he got to the kitchen, he found the coffee machine still on, coffee keeping warm in the pot underneath it. At least Ray had gotten coffee, he supposed, even if he hadn't hung around long enough for the breakfast that he'd promised him. 

Last night had been.. well, it had caught him a little unawares, if he was being honest. He'd expected to sit in that first bar for maybe another hour while his nerves got the better of him, before eventually giving up and going back home to jerk off and watch a movie or something. He hadn't been expecting the night to end as it had, and he certainly hadn't been expecting Ray. He supposed though, that it was a prime example of why he generally stayed away from one night stands. He and Ray had just clicked, and he found that he hadn't wanted him to leave afterwards. Still, it couldn't ever become anything, so maybe it was better than he'd left before he'd woken up. 

His attention was drawn to the back porch though, when he noticed movement outside through the window. After pouring himself a cup of coffee, he went out to check it out, and was surprised to see Ray sprawled in the swing bench out on the porch, "Homes, hey, thought you weren't ever gonna get up." He chirped, bright smile on his face. 

He was lying back in the swing bench, a cigarette in one hand and a cup of coffee in the other, sunglasses pulled down over his eyes. He was pretty sure that the sunglasses were supposed to be Elvis impersonator ones - they were huge and framed with gold plastic, and they were horrifically tacky. He noticed too that he was wearing his t-shirt, which explained why he hadn't been able to find it when he'd gotten up. He had cleaned their come off them last night with Ray's t-shirt though, so he supposed he couldn't exactly blame him. It was a nice sight, he had to admit, Ray in his clothes, despite the fact that the t-shirt was far too big on him. Still, he wouldn't complain. 

"I thought you'd gone when I woke up."

"I thought about it, not gonna lie. I can go though, if you were hoping I'd already left." Ray asked, and he wasn't sure that he liked the hint of unsureness in his voice. 

So he just joined him on the swing, leaning heavily against his side as he did, "I promised you breakfast, you wouldn't make a liar out of me, would you?" He asked, and he couldn't help but smile at the way the unsure look on Ray's face turned to a grin. The truth was, he was actually pretty relieved to find that he was still here. 

"I guess not." Ray said with a small smile, turning slightly in the seat so that Brad was settled more against his chest rather than his side, "Breakfast can wait, just stay here for a little while." 

He was more than content actually, to settle his back against Ray's chest and just lay with him there, the two of them drinking their coffee in silence and Ray finishing his cigarette. Once he had though, he took to combing his fingers through Brad's short hair instead, and he hummed as he pressed back into it, "You look like you could kill someone without lifting a finger, but you're really just a huge fucking kitten, aren't you?" Ray remarked after a moment of this, and he could hear the smile in his voice. 

"You calling me a pussy?" 

"No, it's cute." 

He smiled at that, just humming quietly in response. Usually he'd have bitched and groused about being called cute. He wasn't cute, he was the Iceman. Still though; right now, he wasn't the Iceman, he wasn't Sergeant Colbert. He was just Brad, and just Brad was more than happy to lie here with Ray as long as he could. He laughed quietly when he heard Ray's stomach growling after a moment, and he glanced back over his shoulder to look up at him, "I think I'll make breakfast now." He told him before he pulled himself up from where he'd been lying against Ray. 

"Yeah, good call. Just.. come here first." Ray said once he'd stood up too, cupping Brad's face between his hands and pulling him down to press their lips together. He went easily with it, putting his own arms around Ray's waist to pull him close against him as they kissed, sliding his tongue against Ray's despite the fact that he tasted like the cigarette he'd been smoking, and he was pretty sure he tasted like coffee and morning breath. 

He pulled back after a moment, smiling as he looked down at Ray, "You look good in my clothes." He told him, drawing a laugh from the younger man. Well, it wasn't a lie. 

"Come on." Ray told him, taking him by the hand and pulling him back into the house. Ray situated himself at the table while Brad looked through the cupboard for the carton of eggs, "Okay so bad news, I'm Jewish."

"Uhh, okay?"

"So, no bacon." 

Ray pitched back dramatically in his seat, throwing his arms into the air, "Brad, you should've said that when you introduced yourself. 'Hi, I'm Brad, nice to meet you. By the way, even if I promise you breakfast in the morning, it'll be some sort of shitty vegetarian breakfast because I don't have any bacon or sausage.' It's that easy, maybe you should make a sign." He ranted, although there was a smile on his lips as he did. 

Brad just kissed him again to shut him up, smiling against his lips, "Do you ever shut the fuck up?"

"Rarely."

"I'm beginning to understand that." He teased with a small smile, "I'll make you an omelette?"

They just chatted while Brad busied himself with making breakfast, or he mostly listened while Ray rambled on about everything and nothing - about the weather, about his crappy truck that he was trying to sell, about his sister back in Missouri who'd just had a baby. It was nice to just listen to him actually, and not feel as though he had to force the conversation to fill the silence. He was surprised at how easy it was to just chat to Ray, how easily the conversation flowed. He'd been under the impression that mornings after were generally awkward and uncomfortable, and yet it didn't feel like that with Ray at all. 

He couldn't hold back his smirk though when he finally sat down to eat with Ray, and the younger man moaned obscenely after the first bite of his omelette, "Jesus Christ, Brad.. I need you to make me breakfast every day for the rest of my life."

They relocated to the living room after they'd eaten, although it didn't take them long to end up back in Brad's room, tangled together in the sheets as they made out. They didn't actually fuck again, but hands certainly wandered as they kissed, and he had Ray's leg hitched up around his hips again. 

After that, he insisted that he needed a shower, and Ray insisted that he joined him. He couldn't really say he had any issues with that, if he was being honest, and he had even less issues with it when the younger man sunk to his knees underneath the shower spray and blew him against the wall of the shower. He had half a mind to say 'fuck it' and reciprocate afterwards, despite his reservations, but the water was starting to run cold and he was pretty sure Ray had already sucked out most of his functioning brain cells through his cock. So he settled for wrapping his fingers around Ray's cock and jerking him off until he was coming, with his mouth pressed to his neck. 

By the time they'd gotten dry and dressed again - he loaned Ray a different t-shirt of his to change into - the younger man insisted that he needed another cigarette, and so they went back out to the porch swing, "So, talk to me about you." Ray told him, his neck arched back as he exhaled the smoke from his cigarette. 

"What d'you want to know?"

"Anything.. tell me about your parents, your last relationship, shit like that."

So he did his best, he told him how he'd been adopted by his parents who still lived down in San Diego, about the fact that he'd been engaged but she'd fucked him over - he didn't go too much into that, he didn't want to come across as pathetic - about his sister, about his bike. He tried his best to tell Ray anything he could think of, while also avoiding any subject that could let slip that he was a Marine. He wasn't sure why he was still skating around the subject, but he just.. being a Marine meant that he really wasn't supposed to be doing this, and anyway; after today, he'd probably never see Ray again anyway, so he didn't want to ruin the last couple of hours. Thankfully, Ray didn't ask. 

"Do you like Thai food?" He asked, after a quick glance at his watch. It was nearly four in the afternoon by now, and he had to be back on base at six for the TL meeting, but he figured that he could at least feed Ray again before he had to leave. 

"Yeah, homes, I'll eat anything." He shrugged, although it seemed he couldn't resist adding a playful leer. 

So they ordered their food, and they sat at either end of the couch as they ate, legs tangled together where they met in the middle of the couch. Eventually though, a quick glance at the clock told him that it was nearly five thirty. As much as he really didn't want this day to have to end, he knew that it had to.

"So I uh, I gotta be at work at six." He told Ray, biting his lip gently. Thankfully, the younger man didn't argue, he just nodded and told Brad to give him a minute while he got his shit together - mostly to just get his shoes and find his jacket. Once he had himself sorted, and Brad insisted that he could keep the t-shirt he'd loaned him - since he wasn't really all that attached to it anyway - he walked him out to the door. 

"So, I had a really fucking good time." Ray admitted as he leaned back against the wall of the hall, biting his lip gently. 

"Yeah, so did I." He said with a small smile, before leaning down to kiss him again. They stayed like that for a couple of moments, Ray's hands on his hips and his own hand around the sharp curve of Ray's jaw. Eventually he pulled back though, and all that was left was for Ray to actually leave. He seemed reluctant to go though, and Brad was just as reluctant to let him go. He sighed, biting his lip gently, "I'd ask for your number, and.. I'd love to see you again. But I've got stuff going on, it's bad timing to try and start something right now." 

"I get it. I'm not in a great position now to start anything either, so I won't hold it against you." Ray answered with a small smile, "But.." He reached his hand into Brad's pocket for his phone, fiddling with it for a moment before dropping it back into his pocket, "Why don't you maybe give me a call once things have settled down."

"Yeah, I can do that." He shrugged, with a smile of his own. He knew he wouldn't though. He had no idea how long he was going to be away for, and he was pretty sure that he wouldn't be welcomed if he was in Iraq for a year and decided to give Ray a call once he was back. He doubted Ray would even remember who he was if he called him again in a year. So yeah, he could promise, but he knew that he wouldn't call him. It was nice that he'd given him his number though. 

Eventually Ray smiled, raising up on his toes to press another quick kiss to his lips, although he didn't let it linger, "I'll see you around, Brad."

"Yeah, see you.."

Ray just winked at him before letting himself out, shutting the door behind him afterwards. 

Once he'd gone, Brad was just relieved that he had to be in work in less than half an hour, because he knew that if he'd been left to his own devices for the evening; he probably would have cracked after an hour and called Ray, asked him to come back over. Still, he knew this meeting would probably take up most of the evening, and then tomorrow would be busy with all of their last minute plans and getting things together before they shipped out, and while they weren't shipping out until Thursday afternoon, he still had to be on base early. He'd be meeting the Platoon then, running through the ROE and the plans with Lt. Fick before they actually touched down in the Middle East.

He had a busy couple of days ahead of him, and he found that he was actually totally alright with that.

  
-x-

  
The next day and a half were pretty hectic. He barely got a moment to himself, and he was glad for the distraction. On Tuesday evening after Ray had gone, he'd met the other TL's, and he was glad to say that he had a good feeling about them. 

He already knew Tony Espera, so he had no concerns there regarding him being his assistant TL for Two-One, but the other two were good guys too. Sergeant 'Pappy' Patrick was the Team Two TL, and he seemed like he had a good head on his shoulders. He was the Platoon's Scout Sniper too, and apparently he was a hell of a shot. He had that kind of grandfatherly vibe about him too, like he'd take good care of his men, but he'd heard rumours too that he was apparently the best shot in Bravo Company. Brad liked him though. Sergeant Steven Lovell seemed like a pretty good guy too - he seemed a tough sonofabitch, but like he knew exactly what the hell he was doing. That was what they needed though, from a TL. 

He already knew Lt. Fick and Gunny Mike Wynn, so he had no worries there either. The Platoon was in good hands, he knew that - it was the higher up's he worried about. Colonel Ferrando was.. eager. He just wasn't sure that that was a good thing. He seemed pretty intent on proving to General Mattis that First Recon were the best, and like he'd do anything to prove that. Sergeant Major Sixta seemed like a bit of a pain in the ass, the typical Drill Sergeant type. Captain Schwetje - who was in charge of the entire company - just seemed a little dim, like he wasn't totally sure what was going on most of the time. Then there was Captain McGraw, who was the C.O. of Third Platoon, and he seemed like a total fucking idiot. Still, he'd keep his personal feelings to himself and worry about his own Platoon. 

He made it down to San Diego for a couple of hours on Wednesday to see his parents and his sister, Megan. He was close with his family, not that he'd ever admit it but he was a bit of a mama's boy, so it was nice to be able to visit them before he headed off again. He knew that they worried, but he assured them that everything would be fine. He'd trained for this, this was what he'd become a Marine for. Besides, it wasn't like it was his first deployment either. He hadn't been able to stay for long though, before he'd had to head back up to Oceanside. 

Once he got back to Pendleton after that, it was mostly just getting things packed and ready to go, running through maps and SOP's, before he headed back home to try and catch a couple of hours sleep before tomorrow morning. 

  
-x-

  
When he got up on Thursday, it was with a sense of.. determination. 

He knew that some of the men were probably dreading this day. A few of the new faces, the younger guys, he knew that first time deployment was a scary thought for a lot of them. Chances were though, that they'd be fine. 

The bus was leaving Oceanside at three in the afternoon, which would get them to Riverside for shortly after four-thirty. The plane from there would then take them as far as Spain, where they would change over to another flight that would take them to Kuwait. It was going to be a long journey, but it was fine - it hadn't been that different from the plan when he'd been deployed to Afghanistan. 

He still headed to Pendleton early in the morning though, after he'd locked up and left his keys with his neighbour. He hadn't bothered getting a house-sitter, his next door neighbours were a sweet elderly couple that checked in on him from time to time, so they'd promised him that they'd look after the house while he was gone. He was relieved actually, because he never liked having to get a house sitter. He never saw the point really, considering he didn't have any pets or anything. He had a houseplant - but he was pretty sure that that needed less attention than say, a dog.

He smiled as he got down to the loading yard once he'd gotten to Pendleton, finding Lt. Fick already there. He liked Nate actually, he didn't know him that well yet but he trusted him at least to not get any of the men killed. He seemed competent, which was all he could really ask for, "Lieutenant." He said with a small smile, quickly saluting once he'd caught his attention. 

"Brad, hey, you ready to meet the guys?" He asked, with a smile of his own. Nate was.. very pretty, actually. If he was interested in getting himself in trouble by fraternising with another man from his Platoon, he might have considered going there. Still, he wasn't interested in that, and he knew trying it on with his Platoon Commander was one way of most definitely getting himself into trouble. 

"Can hardly wait, sir." 

He walked with Nate to the loading yard where the men were helping to get their equipment loaded, to find a Platoon's worth of Marines already there. He recognised a few faces - mostly the team leaders that he'd met the other day really. As for the enlisted men though, a quick scan of them didn't help him recognise any of them, and he had no idea who were the three that would be in his Humvee. 

"Listen up, guys. This is Sergeant Colbert." Nate told them once he'd gotten the men's attention, "He's our new Two-One Alpha TL, so take it easy on him." 

He smiled, biting his lip gently as he looked out at them, "I won't make you all listen to a speech, I swear. I just want to say I've heard good things about this Platoon, and I'll do my best to earn your respect and to do right by you guys." He told them, with what he hoped was a reassuring smile. He didn't want to come across like he thought he deserved to be here or anything, because he knew he was just a very small part in this big machine, that he was one of four team leaders the Platoon had - the only one by now that the Platoon didn't already know and trust. 

"Excellent, I think that about sums it up." Nate said with a smile, before scanning the small crowd of Marines, "Hasser, Person, Trombley, get over here." 

They were joined after a moment by three other Marines, all of whom looked to be younger than both himself and Nate. One of them was tanned with blonde hair and a pretty smile, the other one looked as though he wasn't even old enough to drink and had a sullen set to his face, and the last one had dark hair and eyes, and fuck.. he tried his best to pay attention to Nate as he explained that this was Team One Alpha, and to not make it obvious that he was standing in front of the man that he'd slept with only three days ago. 

Fuck.

How the fuck had this happened? He'd never in a thousand years thought that Ray would be one of the Marines in his Platoon, let alone one of the Marines in his damn Humvee. This wasn't supposed to happen. To his credit though, Ray didn't let on as though he even recognised Brad either, which he was pretty damn relieved about. He wasn't sure how he was supposed to have explained it to Nate if Ray had let on like they already knew each other. 

"Uh, I'm looking forward to getting to work with you guys." He said with what he hoped was a confident smile, "Can I talk to them separately?" He asked, glancing back in Nate's direction, who just nodded, "Yeah, you can use my office."

He spoke to Hasser first, who turned out to be the blonde smiley one. He seemed nice, he was the main gunner for Two-One Alpha, and while he complained that the Mk-19 of their Humvee was constantly jamming if they didn't have the proper lubricant for it, he seemed pretty happy to be up on the gun. Trombley was next, who was the younger one. He'd been right about the fact that he wasn't old enough to drink though, the kid was still only twenty - although it turned out he was married and had a kid on the way. He hadn't actually been through BRC either yet, but he'd be enrolled in the course when they got back from their deployment. 

He chewed on his thumbnail once Trombley left him, anxiously waiting on Ray to come into the office. If he was being honest, he really had no idea what he was supposed to say to him. He hadn't expected to see the younger man ever again, and here he was. Ray let himself in after a moment, and he gave Brad a slightly unsure smile as he stood in front of him, hands in his pockets. 

"So, you're my RTO." He murmured, looking over at Ray. That was another thing. Not only was Ray the driver of his Humvee, he was the damn Platoon RTO too, which meant that he and Brad would be working in especially close contact with each other. Honestly, he couldn't have written this shit. 

"Yeah, I'm good with the radios and the comms and shit." He shrugged, and yeah that was right, he remembered Ray saying he'd studied electrical engineering in college, so that made sense he supposed. "Y'know, when Poke said that Sergeant Brad Colbert was gonna be our new TL, I really didn't think that it was gonna be you."

"You never mentioned that you were a Marine."

"Yeah, well.. neither did you, Sergeant."

He tried not to read too much into the slightly frosty way that Ray was looking up at him, and he sighed as he shrugged, "What d'you want me to say, Ray? Neither of us were supposed to be in that bar that night, and I.." He trailed off, biting his lip gently as he looked over at him. He supposed he got it now though, when Ray had said that he didn't have a place up in Oceanside that he could take him back to - if Ray was from Missouri, he was probably staying in a room at Pendleton. 

Ray eventually sighed, and he seemed to deflate a little, "Y'know, it was lucky you didn't give me your number before I left, 'cause I definitely wouldn't have been able to stop myself from calling."

"I wanted to call. I was going to, I just.. I knew I was leaving, we don't know how long we're going to be gone for, and I didn't want to have to tell you that I could be gone for a year. I didn't think you'd have even remembered me if I left it an entire year before I called."

"Oh, I'd have remembered you, alright. Couldn't stop thinking about you since I left your place" Ray told him, and there was a hint of a smile on his face. 

Neither of them said anything for a moment, and Brad sighed as he leaned back against the desk that was behind him, folding his arms, "What are we gonna do here, Ray?" He asked. He knew that the only logical thing to do would be to forget that that night had ever happened, to forget that he and Ray had clicked as well as they had, to pretend that there wasn't real chemistry there between them. He wasn't sure that he could do that though, and he knew it wasn't fair to insist that he couldn't work with Ray - because he knew that would only result in the younger man being transferred out of the unit, and he really didn't deserve that. 

Ray took a tentative step towards him at that, shrugging his shoulders, "I don't know. But you're really fucking gorgeous, and I'm a little bit stupid and can't take a hint. So if you don't want this, you're gonna have to tell me." He murmured as he stepped into Brad's space. 

He knew that he shouldn't, that he should tell Ray no and that they should leave this office and just.. try to move past this entire thing. He knew that he had no willpower here though, so he just bit his lip gently for a moment as he looked down at Ray, before tilting his head down slightly in Ray's direction. At this indication, Ray leaned up on his toes to press their lips together, pulling Brad slightly down to his height by the front of his blouse. 

He kissed Ray back, of course, dropping his hands to the younger man's hips to pull him flush against his body. It wasn't long until the kiss turned a little dirtier, and he hummed when he felt Ray dropping his hands down from the front of his blouse to fumble with the button and zipper on his trousers, before slipping his hand inside, and then his fingers were tight around Brad's cock. 

He couldn't help the soft moan that slipped out, sliding his own hands underneath the untucked hem of Ray's shirt to to press them against the bare skin of his waist while he continued to kiss him.

It was only when Ray pulled back from the kiss and made to sink to his knees, that Brad realised what they were doing, and came to his senses, "Ray, stop. We.. we can't do this here." He told him, pulling back a little so that he could straighten himself up again. It was one thing for people to suspect, it was another thing entirely for someone to walk in on Ray sucking his cock in the Lieutenant's office.

"We can't do it here, or we can't do it at all?"

That was the question really, and fuck.. Brad knew what the right answer was. He knew he should say that they couldn't do this at all, that they had to go back to pretending their relationship was purely professional, that they only knew each other as Sergeant Colbert and Corporal Person, that he didn't know how good a kisser Ray was, or how he looked when he came. He couldn't though, he didn't have that willpower and he was totally aware of that, "We can't do it here." He eventually told him, biting his lip gently. 

"But we can't do it when we're in Iraq either, Ray. I'm your TL, you know how much shit we could both get into if we're caught." He told him - Brad especially, considering he was Ray's superior, and it could be seen as taking advantage of him. Besides, personal feelings couldn't be a thing when they were out there in an active war zone. He was supposed to look after these men, and he knew he couldn't reliably do that if he was always keeping one eye on Ray. 

"But after?" Ray asked, looking up at him. 

"Yeah. After." 

He reached out after that and caught Ray's hand, giving his fingers a gentle squeeze. It was about all he could promise him right now. 

  
-x-

  
Kuwait was.. dusty. It was dusty, and it was sandy, and it was blisteringly hot during the day and freezing cold during the night. 

While the invasion hadn't actually started yet, they were still kept busy for the time being with training for their first mission at Camp Mathilda. They'd been briefed on it already, and First Recon were going to be spearheading the invasion once they finally got the go-ahead. Their first mission was to secure the bridge crossing over the Euphrates river and to hold it until the main Marine force rolled through. It was good that they had something to train for, to keep them occupied during the otherwise extremely quiet down time. 

Still, all of the down time that they had meant that he had time to get to know the men, and he found that he liked them. All of the men in his Platoon were decent, hard-working men that he completely respected. Captain Schwetje - who'd aptly been nicknamed 'Encino Man' - was a clueless idiot, but he knew that they had been blessed with having Nate as their Platoon Commander.

He was part of a good team too. Walt and Ray seemed to be especially close, and whole they both gave Trombley shit for not being a totally qualified Recon Marine yet, he knew that they both looked out for him like a younger brother. He was glad that they did too, because he knew that he had a responsibility to them as their TL, but it was the men at the same level that tended to look after each other best.

He and Ray were.. it was okay. He was glad that Ray wasn't pushing the issue of trying to actually have a relationship, because he knew that they really couldn't have made it work out here. It was too risky. He liked the other men, but he wasn't sure how any of them would react if they were to come upon he and Ray - especially if the likes of Chaffin or Jacks caught Ray alone. They were close though, really close. Aside from the underlying feelings for Ray that he couldn't seem to shake, the younger man was quickly becoming one of his best friends. 

Right now, they were in second Platoon's tent. It was late morning and they weren't due for another practice run for another couple of hours, so they were mostly just hanging around. 

He was busy with one of their radios, trying to get the damn thing to connect back onto their main comms line. They were all used to their equipment being bottom of the barrel shit, but sometimes he really felt like throwing half of their shit into one of the Humvee's and setting the damn thing alight - not the Two-One Alpha Humvee though, he may have gotten a little attached to it. He and Ray had spent five hundred dollars of their own money since they'd gotten to Kuwait, ordering cammie nets and filters and antennas to try and get the thing back into proper working order. They had even painted it themselves, which had lead to a memorable afternoon of he and Ray flicking paint at each other - right up until Ray had unfortunately thrown his entire paintbrush at him right as Sixta had been approaching them. It had been pretty hard to keep a straight face while Sixta had chewed Ray out for that one.

He was half listening to the conversation happening a couple of metres away from himself, Kocher from third Platoon was busy telling Ray and some of the others about a girl he'd been sleeping with - in quite explicit terms, it seemed. He wasn't really listening though, and he glanced up when Ray turned to him, "Brad, did you hear about J.Lo?"

"Ray, get over here. I need my RTO." He just called back. He hadn't heard anything about J.Lo actually, but he also didn't really care that much. Unfortunately though, in the few weeks he'd had to get to know Ray, he'd learned that the younger man had a love for trashy pop music such as J.Lo and Avril Lavigne. So he'd thought it a little unfair when Ray had ripped into him for his love of Barry Manilow and Air Supply. That conversation had ended in an impromptu sparring match, which he couldn't say he minded too much. 

"What's up?" Ray asked, dropping down beside him after a moment. He just passed the radio over to him, running his hands through his hair. 

"The damn thing is broken again, I can't get it to connect to the main channel."

"Did you try licking the wires?"

He just looked at Ray for a moment, trying his best to determine if the younger man was fucking with him or not. If it were anyone else, he'd have definitely thought so, but Ray was the expert with the radios; so he wasn't totally sure. 

"I did not." 

"Shame. That's what fixes 'em half the time." He said with a bright smile, and Brad had to resist the urge to roll his eyes. 

They were interrupted by Nate ducking into the tent, and informing them of how Command wanted them to brass check all of their weapons, due to a negligent discharge in H&S company. Thankfully no one had been hurt, but he knew the incident was about to cause a massive pain in their asses - probably Battalion-wide. Still, they just had to be responsible with their rifles and not act like idiots with them. 

He was about to go back to his radio, before frowning slightly as Ray got up from where he'd been sat beside him and approached Nate, "Lieutenant, have you gotten any word-"

"I only get what's passed down to me from Godfather and the only word he gets is from the BBC." Nate started, and Brad had to suppress a smile as Nate continued on about how they were all doing their jobs just by being here and that they should all be proud of the work that they were doing. He knew that Nate meant well, that he was trying to reassure the whole Platoon that their work here wasn't for nothing, but he also knew that that wasn't the word Ray was asking about. What he'd learned about the younger man was that he bitched and complained, but that he was perfectly happy to go where he was told when he was told. He whined about it, but he was able to take orders well. 

"Sir, that's not the word I was asking about." Ray said apologetically, "We wanted to know if you knew anything about J.Lo being killed."

At that, he couldn't suppress his smile, especially at the blank way Nate looked at Ray for a moment, before he explained that he'd been given no sit-rep on J.Lo's status. Yeah, Ray had a knack for wearing down his superiors, but in the kind of way that wouldn't get him in trouble. In short, he was just an irritating little shit, and he knew how to work that. 

"Come on, Ray, stop terrorising the LT and help me with these radios." He told him as he rose to his feet. Maybe they'd work a little better once they actually had them hooked up to the Humvee. 

By the time he got out to where the Humvee's had been parked, Corporal Carisalez from third Platoon was already giving the guys a hand, and he smiled in greeting as he dropped into his own seat of the Two-One Alpha Humvee. He'd recently acquired a blue-force tracker for the Humvee, and Ray liked to tease him about it, he always said that he was like a child with a new toy. Okay, maybe he was a little bit, but he was fascinated with gadgets and technology, and this was certainly the most state of the art tech that they had out in this shit hole. 

Eventually Ray joined them, hauling a new set of coax connectors with him, which - honestly - Brad had no idea where he'd gotten them from. That was another talent of Ray's though, he was somehow able to scrounge up things that nobody else seemed to be able to. 

"Where the fuck did you find those?" Carisalez asked disbelievingly, to which Ray just responded, "I had to suck an officer's cock to get these." As he climbed atop the Humvee along with Carisalez. Brad just smiled and rolled his eyes, trying his best not to think of Ray sucking cock - not an easy feat, considering Ray had sucked his cock before, twice actually. So yeah, it wasn't a difficult image to conjure up in his mind.

He ignored the rest of their conversation, which was mainly just Carisalez ranting about the white collar man, and turned back to his blue-force tracker when Poke approached him, "Hey." He greeted with a small smile, before turning the screen towards the other man when he leaned in to see it.

"You are the Iceman, dog." Poke remarked, and Brad grinned as he turned back to the screen, "Third infantry to the East. Us. Our neighbours to the North. And the Euphrates bridge, our objective." He explained as he showed Poke the different functions that the tracker had. Okay, maybe he was a little bit like a child with a new toy. 

He didn't get to spend long showing off though, because Sergeant Major Sixta approached them after that, and he couldn't help but roll his eyes as he started ranting about the goddamn grooming standard. He knew the Marines were totally fucking sick of hearing about the grooming standard by now, but it seemed that Ferrando was insisting that they stuck to his strict rules - and that Sixta was intent on enforcing those rules on any Marines who's appearance slipped outside of regulations in any way. 

"Sergeant Major, is there a problem?" He asked as he climbed out of the Humvee, raising an eyebrow in Sixta's direction. He barely paid attention to what was shouted back at him, but he got the gist of it - which was that Ray's t-shirt was untucked from his trousers. 

Trying his best not to roll his eyes, he turned to Ray, "Corporal Person, be advised, you are to conduct all business in this camp in compliance with the grooming standard, under direct order from the Battalion Commander himself." He rattled off, trying his best to convey to Ray that he didn't want to have to reprimand him, while also trying not to let on how he felt in front of Sixta. Ray just smiled, although he even managed to make tucking his shirt into his trousers look sarcastic. 

He waited until Sixta had stalked off - although not without first laying into some of the other men about their moustaches - before catching Ray's attention again, "Hey, don't push our luck."

Ray just smiled, winking at him. 

  
-x-

  
That night, he found that he just was not able to fucking sleep, no matter how hard he tried. Most nights, he didn't find it too hard. He usually had pretty good discipline over his own body, so it was rare that he laid awake like this and wasn't able to make himself sleep. Whatever it was about tonight though, he just couldn't. 

He sighed as he got up from his bedroll, trying his best to navigate his way in the dark until he could snag a black hoodie that was hanging on a post - which he was pretty sure wasn't regulation, but there always seemed to be a couple hanging around. Once he'd pulled it on, he quietly went outside to where the Humvees were parked, climbing into his seat. He knew he wasn't really supposed to be out here after lights-out, but maybe he'd tire himself out a little playing with his blue-force tracker and trying to get the radios to work. 

After a minute though, the driver side door opened and Ray clambered in, rubbing his eyes with the heels of his hands once he'd settled into his seat, "The fuck you doing out here, homes? It's fucking cold."

"Couldn't sleep." He said with a shrug. He noticed that Ray was wearing an identical hoodie to the one he had on, although it seemed like Ray was always wearing one of them.

"Yeah, neither could I. Walt decided that tonight is the night he starts snoring, and I swear to God; I was this close to just smothering him with my pillow. Anyone else, I probably would have without thinking twice, but since I actually like Walt, I thought I'd take a walk instead." He rambled on, and Brad chose not to mention the fact that Ray looked as though he'd been asleep - bleary eyed and quiet - and he wondered if maybe he'd woken him when he was coming out, and that he'd just decided to follow him. 

"You can sleep here if you want, I'll wake you before first call."

"Eh, I'm awake now." Ray shrugged, kicking his feet up out the window, which put him more leaning against Brad's side than he had been before. 

Fully aware of the shit he was going to get for it, he pulled a roll of charms out of his pocket and offered one to Ray, who stared at the candy in disbelief for a moment, before a bright smile split his face, "You conniving asshole, I fucking knew it was you! Me and Walt gave Trombley so much shit for leaving charms wrappers in the Humvee the other day, and he insisted that it wasn't him. We still gave him shit for it, but I said maybe - just maybe - it could've been you, and Walt told me I was full of shit. I fucking knew it." He said with that same grin, although he did take the roll of candy and ate a couple before handing them back to Brad. Well yeah, he knew charms were taboo, that nobody would have them in their Humvee - he was pretty sure half of them still did in secret though, him included obviously. 

They sat in silence then for a couple of minutes, passing the charms back and forward between them, until Ray eventually spoke up again, "Any luck with the radios? Or have you just been out here petting your blue-force tracker to make yourself feel better?"

"Little bit of both. Although those new coax connectors seem to have helped the radios."

"See? You can count on Ray to look after you."

"Even if you did have to suck an officer's cock to get them. Please tell me you have at least an ounce of self-respect in that disease-riddled brain of yours and propositioned Nate or Patterson?"

"Aw Brad, honey, I wouldn't do you dirty like that. You know the only cock I want to suck is yours."

He couldn't help but smile and roll his eyes at that, just because Ray was a little asshole. He didn't mind so much though, because this was just how Marines talked. It wasn't as though anyone who happened to be walking by and heard them would think anything odd of it - even if there did happen to be a whole lot of truth in what Ray was saying. 

Still, he appreciated the fact that Ray kept little comments like that for moments when they were alone, because he did have images sometimes of somebody finding out what had happened between himself and Ray before they had deployed, and of his entire military career going down in flames because of it. Ray would be alright, he was apparently coming to the end of his four year term soon enough, and he'd said he probably wasn't going to re-up after that. Brad was a lifer though, he was a career Marine, and he really didn't know what he was supposed to do with himself if he ended up being discharged because of who he liked to sleep with. 

"Careful or I'll take you up on that." 

"Well, this tour isn't gonna last forever." Ray said with a small smile, and he just smiled back. Well, yeah. He knew what he'd promised Ray once they got back to the States and got their leave, and so it just remained to be seen whether or not they both felt the same once they got home. 

"Come on, we should go back and try catch some shut eye."

  
-x-

  
Mail call was nothing to get excited about, most of the time. 

He knew that a few of the men genuinely looked forward to it, to hearing from their wives and families about what was going on back home. It was nice, he supposed, but mainly he was just waiting on his goddamn shield to arrive. He'd ordered a shield for the main turret, just as a little bit of extra protection for Walt since he was so exposed up on the gun - it was titanium, sixteen pounds, and he'd had it custom engineered. And there was still no fucking sign of it.

There were no sign of their batteries, or anything else that they had tried to get either. Just fucking letters.

He was lying back on his bedroll, propped up against the bags behind him with his computer sat in his lap. They still hadn't been issued maps of the entire AO, but he was trying his best with what he had so far - which admittedly, was not a lot. He glanced up when Ray stopped in front of him, coy grin on his face as he looked down at Brad, "Nothing but letters. No batteries, no diapers, and no turret. Guess not today, homes." He said, not apologetically at all as he tossed the letters at him. 

He glanced at the letters once Ray had walked off to the next man, opening the one that was from his mother. There was nothing really of importance in the letter, other than the fact that his sister Megan was pregnant. That was nice to hear actually, he liked her fiancé Joe. He was glad that she was happy. He tucked the letter into his bag, with the intention of writing a reply to it later, before settling back down to his computer. 

He found that he wasn't really paying attention to what he was looking at though, most of his attention was focused on the bullshit Ray was ranting about as he read the letters from the school kids that they so frequently got. He tried tuning him out, but he'd already quickly learned that it wasn't so easy to tune Ray Person out when he wanted to be heard. 

He turned his attention back to his laptop, although he couldn't help but smile as Ray finished his speech with "War is the motherfucking answer."

After a moment though, he dropped down onto a crate that was near Brad's feet with a dramatic groan, "Man, every motherfucker in this camp is just waiting for packages of dip, ripped fuel, porn mags, batteries, hash chunks, a dirty-ass jerk-off letter from Suzie Rottencrotch. Except for Brad Colbert over here who actually thinks that his mail-order turret is gonna come in before we step off."

Okay so maybe he was starting to lose a little faith that his turret was going to actually arrive, but he was trying to be hopeful. 

Not long after mail call had finished, many of the men had dispersed, although Ray dropped back down beside him and they were shortly joined by Trombley, who passed a packet of skittles over to Brad, "Thanks, Trombley." He said with a small smile, taking a few before handing them back to him as he turned to Ray, "On the C.E.O.I. they have the escorts listed as no encryption, but they're covered, right?"

"You can't do one frequency plain." Ray explained, before quickly waving him off, "Don't matter on the 113s anyway. They only go to six." He told him, although it seemed as though he was more talking to himself rather than Brad. He was hit then for a moment, at just how competent Ray was. He played up to being an idiot, like he hadn't a clue what he was talking about half of the time, but Brad knew that underneath all of that that he was incredibly intelligent. Of everybody in the Platoon, he was probably the only one who knew exactly what he was doing with the radios, and he was certainly the only one who was able to unfuck them. He wasn't an asshole about it either though. Whereas Brad would be an inch sometimes from just grinding his damn radio into dust, Ray would calmly fix whatever the problem was, all while claiming that he'd learned how to do this out the back of the trailer where he'd lived for the first sixteen years of his life. 

They were interrupted by Nate ducking into the tent along with a man that Brad didn't recognise, and he watched Nate introducing him to Pappy, "This is a writer who's gonna be embedded with us. He's from Rolling Stone, so be gentle." He explained, and Brad turned his attention back to his laptop, although he wasn't surprised when Ray got up after a moment and headed over to the Reporter. Of course, it was like having a new toy on camp that Ray just had to go play with. 

He didn't pay much attention to them, although he looked over when he heard Ray calling his name, "This guy wrote beaver hunt! He must have those Polaroids of your mom."

He didn't dignify with any response other than to raise his middle finger over in Ray's direction, and he smiled to himself when he heard him laugh. 

  
-x-

  
He was starting to get a little pissed off at the fact that his turret still hadn't arrived, mostly because he was pretty sure that they were going to be moving off soon enough, and knowing the efficiency of the US Military? It would probably arrive at the camp the day after they left for Iraq. 

It was mostly just for his own peace of mind. He knew that Walt was good up on the turret, and that he was reasonably protected, but he just.. he didn't want him stuck up there without any cover when they eventually got moving. He knew there'd be bullets flying, and he didn't want him getting hit. 

On that note, he passed by a Corporal that he recognised from the mail calls, who he knew had been up and down from Battalion, "Corporal Coffey." He called, smiling once he'd caught his attention. While he quickly explained to him what it was he was looking for, and wondering if it had maybe been held up at Battalion, his attention was drawn when Rudy approached them, a grim look on his face.

"Sergeant Colbert." He interjected, "It's important."

He sighed, quickly apologising to Coffey before he followed Rudy back to their tent. When they got there, he frowned as he took in the scene in front of them. What seemed like half of the platoon was gathered around Ray, who was sat with a towel pressed against the left side of his face, "What happened?"

"The stove underneath Rudy's espresso pot went off like a forty mike-mike." Walt explained. 

"Flamed white boy's face like a rotisserie chicken." That was Poke, and Brad sighed as he gritted his teeth. 

"Let me understand this. My RTO has just been burned in his tent by an exploding portable stove. And without my RTO, I will be going to war unable to quickly and effectively establish radio communications within our unit, with other elements of the battalion, and with close air support. Is this what is happening?" 

"That, and they're probably gonna NJP all our asses for operating a stove in the tent against the regs."

"Over an espresso maker? This platoon is going down over an espresso maker?"

When all he got were nods and shrugs from the men, he sighed, rubbing his temples, "Corporal Person, come with me." He told him, and he knew that he was using his Sergeant's voice - which didn't leave anything open for negotiation.

He left the tent after that, not stopping to see if Ray was following behind him or not. He assumed that he was, he was pretty sure he made it clear that he hadn't been asking. Once they walked away from the tent, rather than walking down to the medical tent with him to have him looked at, he simply stepped behind the Humvees with him, "Are you okay?" He asked, biting his lip gently as he looked over at him.

Ray just looked at him, towel still pressed to the side of his face, "I think so. Pretty sure I didn't bust my eye or anything, so there's that."

He reached out to take the towel from him, frowning as he examined the damage. He was no Corpsman, but he was pretty sure that it wasn't that bad. He'd be left with a couple of scars probably, but that looked to be the extent of the damage. Like Ray had pointed out though, his eye didn't seem to have taken any damage, and the rest of the burns didn't look that severe. Still, he couldn't deny the initial panic he'd felt when he'd realised exactly what had happened. 

Shit, this was exactly why he'd said he couldn't get into this with Ray, not when they were out here. A stove had blown up in his face, and he'd been sick with worry for a moment before he realised that Ray was okay. How was he supposed to keep his cool when they were actually at war? When they were rolling through an active combat zone in tin-plated Humvees with people shooting at them - very possibly at Ray too, considering he was the point Humvee's driver and RTO. It made him a target. 

"Get yourself checked out at medical." He told him shortly, before turning to walk away. He knew he'd probably been a little sharp with that, but he just.. he couldn't afford to feel.

"Hey, what the fuck?"

He turned back to Ray at that, trying his best to remain professional as he looked across at him, "Is there a problem?" He asked. He just had to remind himself that - right now - he had to be Sergeant Colbert talking to Corporal Person, and not just Brad talking to Ray. 

"I'm not the one with the problem, that's clearly you."

"Just go get yourself checked out."

Ray just looked at him for a moment, before scoffing and rolling his eyes, "Is this some 'personal feelings' bullshit going on right now? Are you being pissy with me 'cause you were worried about me?"

He supposed he should've known that Ray would see straight through him - nobody spoke fluent Brad Colbert the way that Ray did, despite the short time that they'd known each other. He should've known that Ray would guess straight away what he was trying to shut down. 

"Ray, this is what I was trying to avoid. There can't be any personal feelings, not when we're going to be rolling out to an active combat zone. I can't think rationally if I'm worrying about you."

"That's your problem, homes. I didn't push anything here, and it's not my fault that you feel the way that you feel. So don't take it out on me." Ray spat, before turning on his heel and stalking off. 

That.. certainly could have gone better, Brad was totally aware of that. He didn't mean to take it out on Ray either, he didn't. He just.. this was why he didn't fucking do relationships or feelings or any of that shit anymore. He knew that Ray was right though. When they had hooked up that night, neither of them were prepared for the fact that they'd be working together in the same Platoon. So he knew that he maybe had been a little harsh on Ray here, when, like he'd said; it really wasn't his fault that Brad felt how he felt. 

He sighed and shook his head, before heading back in the direction of the tent. He wasn't good at apologies, and if he tried to talk to Ray right now? He knew he'd probably only screw it up and piss Ray off even further. 

He'd give him a little time to cool down before attempting to talk to him. 

  
-x-

  
The warning order came sooner than he'd expected. 

They were officially Oscar Mike, to be moved to the staging area at the Kuwait-Iraq border. Well, that was the plan anyway. For now, they were still sat in their Humvee, where they'd been sitting for almost four hours. 

Forty-eight hours ago, they'd gotten the warning order that they were on the move. As efficient as ever though, they had only found out when pizza had been delivered to them from Kuwait City, and Nate had questioned Captain Schwetje on why they had gotten pizza. Turns out their maps of the AO had been distributed, and Schwetje had been given their orders to move out. Since then, they'd barely had a moment, between packing all of their shit up and getting ready to go. 

They'd been issued their MOPP suits too, which were as awful as he'd imagined them to be. It was already hot as fuck without them on, and the interior lining of the suit was like a wire brush. All in all, he wasn't looking forward to having to wear it for the next God knows how long. Oh, and they'd been misordered in woodland camouflage too, rather than desert. So they all stuck out like a set of sore fucking thumbs. 

Now though, as he'd said, they were sitting in their Humvees, ready to go. They were just waiting on Meesh, the Battalion translator. He tried to ignore Ray as he spat out the window of the Humvee, although it was grating on his nerves a little that he knew for a fact that he'd spit onto the side of the Humvee.

"What the fuck is taking so long? We've been sitting here for four goddamn hours." Ray groused as he dug in his dip tin. He was able to ignore him up until he spat out the window again, and he sighed and closed his eyes. 

"Don't spit on my Humvee, Ray."

"I didn't." 

"Ray, you spit with your lips, you always get it on the side of my Humvee. I heard you spit with your lips." 

He and Ray hadn't actually gotten a chance to talk about it since he'd snapped at him when the stove had exploded in his face. He wasn't sure now either if it was too late to bring it up, or if he should still try to catch him alone as soon as they caught a moment. They were acting totally fine with each other, and from the outside? It wouldn't have looked as though there was an issue. But he just.. there was tension under the surface there, that he wasn't sure that he liked. 

Quickly weighing the pros and cons in his head, he decided that maybe he should try and talk to him - despite the fact that it had been three days since he'd snapped. They were heading into active combat, and Ray was his driver and his RTO, they needed to totally have each other's six without there being any underlying resentment there. 

Eventually, he glanced out of the window to see Meesh arriving with one of the Corporals from third Platoon, fucking finally, "Interpreter is stowed." He stated, settling back into his seat again. 

"War scribe, want some dip? First couple of times I dipped, I puked a little bit. But as long as you don't get it in Brad's Humvee, we won't mind." Ray said with a grin as he turned over the engine, and Brad just rolled his eyes as Ray passed his tin of dip back to Reporter. 

Whatever, he was just glad to be on the fucking move. 

  
-x-

  
Later on that evening, he was sitting next to the Humvee underneath one of the cammie nets that they had rolled out. 

They were finally on the Kuwait-Iraq border, and now they were fucking waiting again. He knew it wouldn't be long until the invasion actually started, but there was still time for them to call the entire thing off and send them all back home. Honestly? He wasn't totally sure how he'd feel about it if that were to happen. He'd be pissed obviously, because of how long they'd trained for this bridge mission, and because of the fact that they'd been stuck in Kuwait sweating their balls off for six weeks. But still, he knew there was a part of him that would be relieved, and he also knew that that had a lot to do with Ray. 

As if by luck, the cammie net was lifted after a moment, and Ray joined him by the side of the Humvee. 

He was halfway through an MRE by the time Ray had shown up, and the two of them sat in silence for a couple of minutes, listening to the BBC that was broadcasting on their shitty radio. Apparently, there were a quarter of a million troops waiting at the border staging area, and the Secretary of Defence was denying that there was any sort of negotiations going on regarding a ceasefire. 

"We kicked the hornets nest." He murmured, glancing out past the Humvee, "Now we better kill all the fucking hornets." 

Ray just rolled his eyes at him in response, shooting him a look afterwards that totally conveyed how full of shit he thought that Brad was. 

It was only now that he realised, that he'd been meaning to get Ray alone to try and talk to him about this whole situation. Now that he had him here though, he found that he almost wanted to pussy out of it. Still, like he'd told himself, they needed to try and clear the air before they actually went to war. 

"Ray.." He started hesitantly, waiting until he'd gotten the younger man's attention before holding out the rest of his MRE to him. In any other situation, he wouldn't have even dreamt of giving away most of a jalapeno and cheese MRE, but he was trying his best to extend an olive branch here. 

Ray just raised an eyebrow, looking at Brad for a moment until he shrugged and took the MRE, "Jesus shit, homes. You must be feeling really fucking bad." He teased, although he was wearing a hint of a smile. He passed the MRE back after a moment though, with some of it still left in the bag. 

"Are we okay?" 

"Yeah, course we are." 

He just smiled at that, although he turned his attention away after a moment. He didn't do heart to hearts, feelings made him itchy. After a moment though, he felt Ray's fingers tentatively touch his own where they rested on the ground between them. His only reaction was to turn his hand over so that Ray could link his fingertips through Brad's. They weren't holding hands, he wouldn't go that far, but it was.. something. 

"I'm sorry." He said softly after a moment, because he just had to get it out. He hadn't meant to snap at Ray, and he knew it had been unfair of him to take it out on him. 

"I know." 

When he turned to look at Ray again, it was to find him watching him with a small smile, and he really couldn't help himself when he leaned across the short distance to press a kiss to Ray's lips. It was short and chaste, just a simple press of his mouth against Ray's, but he just.. he couldn't not do it. 

When he pulled away, he had an apology on the tip of his tongue, but Ray just smiled and knocked his shoulder against Brad's, before leaning heavily against his side, giving his fingers a gentle squeeze. 

It wasn't much, but it was all they could get for now. 

  
-x-

  
The invasion was.. well, it certainly wasn't what he'd expected, that much was for sure. 

Once they'd gotten their orders and had entered Iraq, they still hadn't been entirely sure what was supposed to be happening. All they knew for sure was that when they had finally stopped again, they were way outside of the AO, and way past the perimeters of their bridge mission. The next word they'd gotten was that the bridge mission was to be abandoned entirely, that they had new orders. 

He knew how pissed off a lot of the men were with that, and he couldn't say he blamed them either. They had trained for that mission for six weeks, and then they had pulled it right out from underneath them. So yeah, he was pissed off too. Still, they weren't in a position to complain about it. What they were supposed to do was take orders, and so that was what they did.

Their first contact with armed Iraqis too, and they had waved them off. The ROE had stated that they were to initiate contact with soldiers only. It didn't matter that these men had been armed and aggressive, they were still civilians, which meant that they couldn't touch them. It was only afterwards that they had found out the men in the pickup trucks had been Fedayeen - exactly the people that they were supposed to be shooting at. 

Still, despite the growing frustration at Command, and the fact that they seemed to be getting jerked in all directions, things were pretty good at the moment with Ray. It was so easy with him like it was with nobody else in the Platoon. He was getting sick of the driving and the stopping at any given moment, not being given a proper mission while Alpha executed order after order. It was more than a little frustrating. But on the other side of that, he didn't mind the constant driving so much when Ray would take his eyes off the road for a moment to screech, "Makin' love to you is all I wanna do.." While they sang the South Park version of 'Lovin' You' to each other. Reporter had laughed at them, and he knew that it was probably going to make it into his book when he eventually wrote it, but he found that he didn't mind so much. Besides, it wasn't as though anyone would know that he meant every word of it when he sang the same words back to Ray. 

He did make it bearable though, between his war theories and constant rambling about patriotism and dress-blues commercials. He would admit that it grated on his nerves a little from time to time, especially when he wouldn't shut the fuck up about pussy or similar themes to that, but he knew that he'd miss it if he had anyone else as his driver. 

One thing he was worried about though, was the amount of Ripped Fuel that Ray seemed to be ingesting lately. He knew that half of the men in the Platoon had a stash of uppers, but he was pretty sure that none of them were on as much as Ray usually was at any given time. That was when his rambling became more than a little unbearable, just because he didn't know how to read the atmosphere and shut the fuck up.

"Man, I am so high from not sleeping." He'd stated while they were driving, staring directly out the front window of the Humvee, "So check this out; maybe they didn't issue the wrong colour fatigues for the invasion. Maybe our blouses actually aren't green, maybe they are desert beige. You know like sometimes colours actually start to look different when you're so sleep-deprived? Like the sun, it looks red when it actually is yellow. Y'know, maybe our blouses aren't green. We're just so fucking sleep-deprived that's the way that they look to us."

"Are you making this up?" He asked after a moment of this, glancing back in Ray's direction. 

"Fuck yeah I'm making this up!" 

So yeah, he was maybe keeping a close eye on him. 

  
-x-

  
Eventually they reached Nasiriyah, and they were finally given a legit mission. 

After driving as part of a convoy for God knows how long, they were finally being detached from RCT-1 and doing some route reconnaissance. It wasn't much, but it was fucking something. 

Soon enough they reached the trail where they would be detached, and they took the left turn while the rest of the division stayed on route to the right. They would be on their own for the next fifteen kliks, where they would link back up with RCT-1 outside of the next town that they passed. He knew that there was a general sense of relief throughout the Platoons, that they were finally being given a job that they had trained for. They were basically on their own for the time being - they had no air, no ass, but they would be the first Americans to scout this route, so he knew a lot of the men didn't have much to complain about. 

The only problem was though, as they drove through the town; Encino Man was working off of his own map, to which Ray had incredulously asked; "They let him have a map?"

He knew they were all thinking it, it was just that Ray had been the only one with the balls to actually say it. 

As they drove, the radio in their Humvee crackled to life, with Nate's voice coming over the comm, "Two One, this is Two. I need you to take that bridge over the canal ahead. How copy?"

Brad raised an eyebrow in question, glancing at Ray for a moment before switching on his own radio, "Hitman Two, interrogative: am I to understand you mean the near bridge? Because I don't think that's the correct turn."

"Direct order from Hitman actual."

Great. After a quick questioning look from Ray, he simply shrugged and nodded. He wasn't convinced that this was the right turn, or that Schwetje even had a fucking clue what he was supposed to be doing here, but it wasn't up to him to question Command. He could admit his doubts to Nate, but being only a Sergeant under Schwetje's Captain's rank? He couldn't exactly get on the comms to tell him that he was a fucking idiot. 

Eventually though, Nate came back over the comms to tell them to stop. Apparently, Schwetje had just realised that he'd ordered them down a wrong turn. As he got out of the Humvee and walked back towards the Command trucks, Nate quietly pointed out to him that Schwetje was just realising that they were lost. 

"Hitman Two, this is Hitman actual. We're gonna backtrack, Hitman Three will be on point. Colbert's team took a wrong turn at the bridge." Schwetje told Nate after a moment through his comm, and honestly? Brad couldn't fucking believe it. As if it wasn't bad enough that their Company Commander couldn't even read a fucking map, now he didn't even have the balls to admit it and was blaming his mistake on Brad? In his anger, his hand flew to his own radio, and it was only when Nate caught his eye and shook his head that he realised maybe it wasn't worth it. 

Whatever. 

He simply stalked back to his Humvee, slamming the door maybe a little harder than he'd meant to after he climbed into the vehicle. He couldn't even bring himself to care, he was so pissed off. Thankfully, the other four in the Humvee seemed to realise not to say anything, and Ray was silent for once as he turned the Humvee in a three point turn and followed behind Poke's vehicle. Now, not only was First Recon officially behind everybody else in the entire division, but now Two-One Alpha was the very last Humvee in the convoy too. Fucking Encino Man. 

"Hey." Ray eventually spoke up as they drove, risking a quick glance in Brad's direction, "Encino Man is a fucking retard."

"Yeah."

  
-x-

  
Not long after, they got word that Alpha, Charlie, and H&S were being pinned down, taking fire from another town. 

Their orders for the moment were to lay low while Battalion tried to find a way to bypass the town rather than go straight through it. Apparently, Colonel Dowdy from RCT-1 had already refused orders from General Mattis to push through the town - which was an indication of just how fucked the plan was in the first place. If seven-thousand RCT Marines had deemed the town too dangerous to go through, then it should have been pretty clear that their best plan of action was to steer clear. Still though, he know how desperate Ferrando was for Mattis' attention, how badly he wanted to get First Recon on the map. So he just.. he worried about what their next orders were going to be. 

For now, they were sat in the Humvee as per fucking usual, discussing Trombley's unborn kid. He knew it was maybe a little harsh of him to talk to Trombley the way that he was, but he was just so fucking pissed off at everything. Not that he was showing it, he wouldn't be the Iceman if he did, "You against marriage, Sergeant?" Trombley eventually asked, and there was silence in the Humvee for a moment until Ray eventually piped up, "Brad got dumped."

Oh yeah, that was right. He'd forgotten that he'd told Ray about Katie, when they'd been hanging out together at his house the morning after they'd slept together. He hadn't gone completely into detail then, had only told him the bare basics - that he'd been engaged, and then she'd dumped him. 

"My sweetheart since junior high left me and married my best friend since junior high." He explained with a shrug, turning slightly to glance at Ray, "We're all still friends. They're one of those happy couples that likes to take pictures of themselves and hang them up all over their goddamn house. Sometimes I go over there just to look at my ex-fiancee doing all the things I used to do with her with my best friend. Surfing and jet skiing.. It's nice having friends."

He hated the sympathetic look on Ray's face at that, and he wasn't even sure why he was telling him this. It wasn't like he still loved Katie, he was just.. bitter, he supposed. He hated that he'd been happy with her, and meanwhile she'd been trying to come up with the least difficult way of breaking up with him so that she could marry his best friend instead. It was fucked up. Still, he supposed though that if he'd married Katie, he wouldn't have been in the bar that night and so wouldn't have met Ray. He'd have met him eventually regardless, but the situation would have been entirely different. Or maybe it would have, who knew. Maybe he would have still fallen in love with Ray regardless of the fact that he'd be married to Katie. 

It hit him then that he'd sort of just silently admitted to himself that he was in love with Ray. 

Fuck. 

No, he wasn't in love with him. He wanted him, he knew that much. Maybe he was counting down the days until their involvement in the war ended and they were sent back home, so that he could be with him, but that didn't mean that he loved him. He had a soft spot for him, and he certainly wanted to fuck him again, but he didn't love him. Or that was what he was telling himself anyway. 

After a couple of minutes of this, Nate ducked his head in Brad's window to let them know that there were a change in their orders, that they would be punching through the town after all. Fantastic, just what they wanted to hear. He wasn't sure whether it was good or bad news to hear that they would be picking up the rear, but when Nate informed them that they would again have no air support because of a Shamal coming in; he was pretty sure it was bad news. That meant that they would be the very last element of the convoy pushing through the town, and they wouldn't even have any support. So yeah, fucking wonderful. 

So they took off after Alpha, and soon enough, they were pushing through the town. 

It was quiet though, too quiet for Brad to be able to relax when he knew that Alpha and H&S had already taken some fire when they had been coming through the town just ahead of them. He really didn't like it.

"Gentlemen. From now on, we're gonna have to earn our stories." He told the others as they made their way through the town, and he could almost hear the eye-rolls from the other four men in the Humvee at his words. In any other situation, it would have made him smile, but he was a little too on edge right now. 

Their journey through the town was quiet, up until he heard a faint pinging noise coming from the balcony building to their first, followed by firing from the window, "Contact right!" He announced, before opening fire back at the building. The other Victors didn't take long to follow his lead, firing their rifles back at the building, and he heard Walt's Mark-19 firing above their heads. 

It was fucking carnage. There was shooting coming from all sides, and he was pretty sure half of the men didn't even know who or what they were firing back at. He could tell that there was some panic starting to amass throughout the rest of the Platoon, but he just hoped to God that the rest of his team were able to hold it together. He was calmly firing back whenever he spotted a target - unlike a few shots he had heard from behind them which sounded a little like random fire. Ray's driving was careful and controlled too, which he couldn't be more thankful of right now. He knew the younger man tended to get a little erratic behind the wheel at times - especially when he was   
strung out on Ripped Fuel, or when he was pissed at Brad and was attempting to punish him. They really didn't need that right now though. Trombley and Walt seemed calm enough too, which he was glad of. It was mostly the Reporter freaking out on them that he was concerned about, but he seemed okay for the time being. 

"Fuck, the Mark-19's down." Walt yelled after a moment, and Brad could hear him jerking the gun in attempt to un-jam it. 

When they drove on though, a wire crossing the road had slipped down far enough to catch Walt, and he was pulled back with the wire as Ray drove the Humvee on. Thankfully, Reporter was quick to action and caught Walt around the legs before Ray had realised what had happened, "Hass is down, he caught a wire!" Reporter told them, while Ray jerked the Humvee to a stop. 

"Back it up, Ray." He told him, keeping an eye on their surroundings through the scope of his rifle. It was hard to keep calm under situations like this, but he was the Iceman - keeping his cool was what he was known for. Ray reversed the Humvee slightly, just enough for Walt to duck underneath the wire and get back up on the gun, "Good, go!" He called down to them. 

"Is Hasser good? Are we good to go?"

"Good."

"Go, go, go!"

Ray didn't waste any time in getting the Humvee going again, and they pushed through the rest of the town. Thankfully though, they seemed to have passed by the worst of the gunfire, and it wasn't long before they were leaving the outskirts of the town and were rolling back onto the MSR. 

Nate called a radio check for all of the Victors once they were in the clear, and he could feel how his heart was pounding as he reported back, "This is Two-One Alpha, up one-twenty and up."

Fuck. 

"We just got fucking lit up." He murmured, and he barely realised that he'd spoken until he caught Ray's eye and the two of them shared a disbelieving laugh. Shit, that had actually just happened. They'd pushed through a town that even RCT-1 hadn't attempted to, and they'd been fucking ambushed - and yet, every one of them had come out on the other side of it okay, "Man." He said through a laugh, and he couldn't keep the smile off his face as Ray laughed. 

"Everybody is okay, right?" He asked, glancing back at Reporter and Trombley in the back seats. Thankfully, everybody seemed to be doing okay. Walt hadn't been decapitated by that wire, and Trombley just seemed happy that he'd finally gotten to shoot somebody. Even Reporter seemed like he was doing okay. 

Shit, that had been something. 

  
-x-

  
Later on that evening, when they were on twenty-five percent watch, he decided he'd try and get a couple of hours shut eye. 

Maybe it was a little useless even trying, because he was pretty sure none of them were actually sleeping properly - especially Ray, who he hadn't seen even attempt to get some sleep since the invasion had started - but he could at least try. He'd really only started to settle down in his grave when he felt some of the sand from the side of his grave pouring in on top of his legs. Opening his eyes, he wasn't surprised in the slightest to see Ray standing above him, kicking sand in on top of him, "What d'you want, Ray?"

"Get up, we have a mission. Search and rescue. One of the officers went out to take a shit, stepped over the berm and hasn't been heard from since."

"An officer."

"From H&S company. He's probably just lost in the dark somewhere."

"Fucking officers will be the death of us yet." He groused as he dragged himself out of his grave, slinging his rifle back over his shoulder as he followed Ray up onto the berm.

They walked in silence along the berm for a couple of minutes, Ray humming quietly to himself under his breath while Brad kicked idly at a rock every now and again that caught his attention. 

"Have you gotten any sleep at all?" He asked eventually. He was pretty sure none of them had after the ambush earlier today though. Adrenaline was still running pretty high, and he knew for a fact that nobody was feeling in any way traumatised over what had happened today. They were Marines, he knew they'd all gotten a kick out of it. So he was pretty sure that, despite the fact that they were on twenty-five percent watch, that very little of the men were actually sleeping. 

"Nah, homes. I never really ever needed that much sleep anyway." 

"Still, I want you to try and catch a couple of hours when we get back."

"Shit, I couldn't sleep even if I wanted to. I'm too hopped up." 

He wasn't sure if he meant from the rush of today, or from the Ripped Fuel, or if he was just so over tired that he wouldn't be able to sleep - or if it was some combination of all three - but he certainly wasn't having it. 

"That's an order, Ray." 

"Well.. have you gotten any fucking sleep?"

"I got an hour and a half yesterday."

"That's not much. As our TL, and the one making the decisions and ordering us around, I think it's a little more important for you to be totally cognizant." 

"It's better than nothing."

He wasn't having this argument with Ray right now. He knew that the younger man was right in a sense, considering he was their team leader, but he had his own reasons for needing Ray awake and capable. He was their driver, for the point vehicle of second Platoon, of Bravo Company in its entirety, so he needed to be confident that Ray wasn't going to fall asleep at the wheel or drive them off the road in a Ripped Fuel addled haze. 

Thankfully, Ray quietened back down at that, although his silence seemed to be a rather pissed off one - at the fact that he'd had to resort to ordering him to get some sleep, Brad assumed. 

"I still can't believe we're out here searching for a fucking officer." He said on a sigh, chancing a glance over in Ray's direction. 

"Oh, man. Don't I know it. Between Encino Man and Captain America - and I swear to Christ, Godfather is getting just as bad as the two of them - one of them is going to get us all killed. I mean, we all know Encino Man is just an idiot, and Captain America seems like he's on the brink of shitting himself at any given time, but what the fuck is going on with the higher-ups?" Ray started, and Brad couldn't help but smile as he realised that he'd just gotten himself into yet another Ray Person style outraged rant. 

"I mean, I know General Mattis is trying to prove that he's the baddest bitch around, but lately it looks like Godfather is about this close to rolling over on his back and begging Mattis to notice him. He's gonna get us all fucking killed because he wants to get himself a gold star. Then on top of that, I was listening in on the radios earlier, and Colonel Dowdy - who actually seems like he's got a little bit of sense, for not pushing RCT-1 through that town today - yeah, sounds like he's gonna be relieved of his goddamn command because he, and I quote, 'cared too much about the welfare of his men and not the mission'. Christ, are there any competent fucking officers left in this entire military?"

"Nate is competent." He said after a moment. 

Ray was quiet again at that, and Brad wondered where the fuck he had misstepped there. It was true though, he knew that they were goddamn blessed that Nate was their Platoon Commander, considering he seemed to be one of the only officers they dealt with that actually seemed to know what he was doing. All of the rest of them seemed to be trying their best to get them killed. Patterson was the other exception to the rule, but being with Alpha, they didn't have a whole lot of crossing with him. 

"Homes, I'm gonna ask you something, and like.. you don't have to answer, or it's okay whatever your answer is." 

If he was being honest, he didn't like the sound of that. He had no idea what sort of ideas rattled around inside Ray's disease riddled brain, so this worried him a little. That as well as the fact that he seemed to be beating around the bush a little, when he never would before. 

"Like I said, whatever your answer is; it's totally fine."

"Ray, spit it out." 

Ray just looked at him for a moment before sighing and shrugging, folding his arms over the strap of his rifle, "Is there anything going on with you and the LT?" 

Of all the questions that Brad had been expecting Ray to ask, that certainly hadn't been it. He wasn't sure why Ray would even think that there was anything going on between himself and Nate, because there certainly wasn't. 

"I- what the fuck?" 

"I don't know, dude. You two are always staring at each other." 

"We don't stare at each other." 

"Yeah, you do. In the lingering, meaningful sort of way too. I just.. it made me wonder. Like I said though, it's fine. But just, let me know, y'know? So I'm not waiting around like a sad sack." 

He honestly didn't really know what to say to that. Of course he liked Nate, and he respected him as an officer, and he could see that he was attractive, but that was it. There was nothing else going on there. He hadn't ever thought that he was even acting like there was anything more than that between them. He felt a little bad now too, even though he hadn't been consciously doing anything - since he'd left Ray wondering what the fuck was going on. 

"Ray, there's nothing going on between us." He told him, "He's my friend, and he's about the only officer we've got out here that I respect, but that's as far as it goes."

"Right." Ray said with a nod, shrugging slightly. 

It didn't look like he totally believed him though, so - against his common sense - Brad quickly glanced around to make sure that there was nobody else patrolling up and down the berm. Once he was sure that there wasn't, he grabbed Ray by the strap of his rifle, pulling him a couple of steps down over the edge of the berm. 

"Homes, what th-" He started, but Brad shut him up by cupping his face between his palms, pressing their lips together. Thankfully Ray didn't seem to have any reservations about getting caught, because he brought his hands up to Brad's hips, pressing his body flush against his as he kissed him back. 

They kissed for a couple of moments, and he tried to put everything into it that he couldn't say in words - in the way he held Ray's face between his hands, in the way he slid his tongue against Ray's, in the way he hummed low in his throat when Ray pressed his fingers hard into his hip. 

Eventually he pulled away - just because he knew that they were pushing their luck by doing this here at all - although he ducked his head a little to catch Ray's eye, "I want you." He told him, "I don't know why, because you're a cretinous, Whisky Tango degenerate. But I do." 

Ray just smiled, rolling his eyes at him, "Fine, I guess I'll believe you." 

He was relieved to hear that actually, because he was pretty sure that the thought that he and Ray could be together once they got back to the States was one of the few things keeping him going. 

"What you said though, about my answer being okay whatever it was. That goes for you too." 

"What?"

"I don't know, if like.. Walt wants to get down and dirty or whatever. You don't have to say no." 

Ray just looked at him for a moment with his eyebrows raised, before he kicked him in the shin. Hard, too, the little fucker was stronger than he looked, "Ow! What the fuck was that for?" 

"Walt? Really? All the guy talks about is how he's gonna marry his girl the second he gets home." 

"Well, I don't know, I'm just saying. Not just Walt, but anyone you might want to sleep with." 

Ray looked a little like he was going to kick him again, so he took a step back so that he was just out of the younger man's reach. He didn't attempt to though, he just shrugged, scuffing his boot along the ground, "I don't want to sleep with anyone else." 

Okay, well that was that. He knew that things could change, that they didn't even know how long it would be before they got to go home. But he was pretty sure that - for the moment, at least - they had both just agreed that this was an exclusive thing. It was an odd one though, because they were holding off until they both got Stateside. So they weren't even sleeping with each other again yet, but they'd just agreed not to sleep with anyone else either. 

"Okay." He just said, because he didn't want to make a huge thing of it. 

"Okay." Ray replied after a moment, a small smile on his lips, "Big Gay Brad." 

"Shut the fuck up, Ray." 

  
-x-

  
He was starting to realise that maybe this whole war was a little bit bullshit. 

Aside from the fact that they were still being jerked along by Command, weren't being given proper Recon missions, and were being sent headfirst into shitty situations without the proper information or back-up - it seemed like they weren't actually making a damn bit of difference. 

The civilian body count was starting to add up, and he was pretty sure that they had killed more civilians at this point than Fedayeen or Republican Guard. It was starting to get to him, and he had a feeling that he wasn't the only one who was feeling like that. It seemed that Nate was maybe starting to crack a little. Not in the way that Captain America had obviously cracked - because it looked like he'd just lost the entire fucking plot - but it was in the way Nate was starting to lose patience with the other officers, how he'd let frustrated comments slip to Brad or Gunny Wynn. He was pretty sure that he'd be okay, but he knew it must have been tough on him. 

He was still a little worried about the amount of Ripped Fuel that Ray was taking on the daily, as well as how little he was both eating and sleeping. It wasn't interfering with his abilities yet though, so he didn't have to have a word with him about it just yet. He'd just keep an eye on him. 

Unfortunately, while Ray was still competent at his job, it seemed that he couldn't shut up while he was on Ripped Fuel. He was like that anyway, but even more so when he was all hopped up, and it drove Brad crazy. Obviously he had all sorts of feelings for the younger man, and he knew that Ray knew that - but when they'd been stuck in the Humvee for hours on end, with their orders constantly changing, and Ray was yammering on in his ear about some ridiculous topic that Brad really couldn't have cared less about; he found that he wanted to strangle him. 

Still, despite all of that, he still indulged Ray by doing his Big Gay Al impression for him when he asked, or joining in on the song when Ray would start singing. He wanted to kill him half of the time, but he did love him. He didn't want to end up driving him away because he was in a mood. 

It just didn't help that things were starting to get on top of them. 

Schwetje attempted to call in a fire mission to target a hunter killer RPG team - that Nate's team had already taken out - and had nearly called in an air-strike right on top of them. It was only the fact that he was using the wrong protocols that saved their asses. On top of that, the Delta company reservists had also mistaken them for enemy forces and had opened fire on them. They hadn't actually hit any of them - so it wouldn't have really been that big a deal - except that they managed to take out a supply truck. Nobody had been injured, but Godfather had ordered them to abandon the truck, and they later found out that the truck had contained most of their food rations, as well as the Battalion Colours. So yeah, morale was pretty much at an all-time low right now. 

They'd get through it. They had to. 

  
-x-

  
When Trombley accidentally shot two kids, that was when he started to feel things coming apart at the seams. 

It was an awful situation, but he wasn't sure why everybody had suddenly chosen to forget the fact that the ROE had basically been lowered to nothing, that they had been told to shoot everybody in and around the airfield that they were ordered to seize. It seemed though, that the slight raise in morale from finally executing a proper order had been torn back down by this news, especially when the mothers of the two kids had brought them to them for help. One of them had been shot in the leg, and looked as though he was going to make it. It seemed there was nothing that they could do for the other one though, because Doc didn't have the proper resources to treat him out here, and Godfather had denied their request to casevac him. 

"Shot by that asshole Trombley, Brad. He's been zipped by 556 from Trombley's SAW." Doc explained when he came by after he'd heard the news.

He sighed, and he could feel his how his hands were shaking when he rubbed one of them over his face, "Don't put this on Trombley, I'm responsible."

"Yeah? Well twenty other Marines drove by and didn't shoot. Why don't we bring Trombley here to see what he's done?"

"Don't say that. It was my order." He told him, biting down hard on his lip. He knew he had a reputation as the Iceman, but it was hard not to let his emotions get the better of him when faced with a situation like this. He knew what the ROE had said, that they had been told to shoot anybody and everybody, but these were fucking kids. 

"What can I do here?" He asked after a moment. 

Doc just scoffed, shaking his head, "Not a fucking thing, apparently, Brad."

So he just stood back and let Doc do whatever he could for the kid, and tried his best to be subtle about the way he scrubbed at the tears that were tracking down his cheeks. It was pathetic really, he knew it was, but he couldn't help how awful he felt for this family. They were civilians, women and children. They were here to help them, and they had rolled through and just shot two children, it was impossible not to be upset by what had just happened. 

Eventually, Aubin told Doc to put the kid in his care, that Godfather might change his mind if he had to watch him die. Naturally, Godfather wasn't pleased by this, and even less so with how they stood and waited while he explained why he couldn't casevac the kid. It seemed that he'd been all talk though, because he eventually conceded to dispatch a platoon from Alpha to take the kid up to the shock-trauma unit. That didn't mean that the kid was suddenly out of the woods, that he'd make it through this. But it at least gave him a chance. 

If he snuck off by himself afterwards, and finally stopped trying to hold back his emotions and just let himself cry, well then nobody had to know about it. 

  
-x-

  
He'd mostly gotten a hold of himself by that evening, but that wasn't to say that he was okay over what had happened. He knew that they probably wouldn't be told what happened to the kid in the end, one way or another, but he tried telling himself that they had done enough, that Alpha had gotten the kid to the shock-trauma in time and that he'd be fine. 

Oddly, it didn't make him feel any better about the whole thing. 

Nate and Gunny Wynn had gathered them around then, tried their best to give them a pep talk about how they needed to move past this. Well, that part had mostly been Nate. Wynn had pretty much just told them that they needed to remember that these were people, that they were just trying to live their lives and that they weren't here to take that away from them. 

It didn't help either that Trombley reminded him after that of how none of this really mattered to him, and that if either one of them were going to take a hit because of this, that it would be Brad - since he was the one to give the orders. He knew the kid was only trying to make sure that he was okay, but it still didn't help to hear. 

"I'll be fine, Trombley." He told him, before walking off. He only went around the side of the cammie net that they'd been under, sighing as he crouched and put his head in his hands. He just.. he needed a little space. After a moment, he could hear Trombley leaving and walking away too, and then it was just Walt and Ray in the tent. He wasn't eavesdropping, he wasn't, it just so happened that he could hear them from where he was sat. 

"I don't want to sound like I'm defending Trombley or anything, but how come nobody remembers that they declared everybody hostile? I mean, they told us to shoot at everybody." Ray started after a moment. 

"Yeah, but you know what's even more fucked up? Trombley only shot two bursts, maybe seven rounds. I mean, we're bumping down a dirt road, his targets are like two hundred meters out, and he hits exactly what the fuck he's shooting at?" Walt asked, before huffing quietly, "I mean, fuck, man. The boy is a cold-on, dead-eye killer." 

"Yeah, no shit. It's 'cause he's a psycho, but at least he's our psycho." 

They were silent again for a moment before Walt spoke up again, "How's Brad?"

"Ah, shit." Ray sighed, and Brad could hear him shuffling around a little, maybe climbing back up onto the hood of the Humvee next to Walt, "I don't know, dude. You know how he is, he's probably off doing his best Iceman impression right now." 

"Maybe you should go talk to him?" 

"You know how stubborn he is, he won't listen to anyone right now. He'll be fine." 

"He'd listen to you." Walt said quietly, and Brad couldn't help but frown. He wasn't sure exactly why that comment put him on edge, but he just.. it sounded like Walt was getting at something. 

Ray just laughed quietly, before he was quiet again for a moment, "I doubt it, homes." 

"Oh, please. I know you guys are waiting until we get home before you officially start something, but it's not hard to see that he's head over heels for you. If he'd talk to anyone right now, it'd be you." 

Okay so if he'd been on edge before because of Walt's comment, now he was just.. he didn't even know what he was supposed to think. Obviously Walt knew exactly what was going on between them, and how the fuck would he have known that unless Ray had actually told   
him? 

Fuck. 

He'd thought that Ray was smarter than that, he hadn't thought that he'd be so fucking idiotic as to think he could tell the other men about this. Walt obviously didn't have much of a problem with it, but he could only imagine how well the news would go down if it got back to the likes of Chaffin and Jacks. All of a sudden, his blood was boiling. It was like what Trombley said all over again. Ray wasn't a career Marine, he was never going to be in this for life, what did it matter to him if word got out and he was discharged? Again, it was Brad who was going to suffer for this in the long run, if Ray wasn't able to keep his mouth shut. 

He found that he didn't really want to hear then whatever either of them had to say next, and he dragged himself to his feet before stalking off. Fuck, how could he have been so fucking stupid to think that they could keep this quiet? To think that Ray wouldn't run his mouth like he always did. He'd thought though that Ray would know just how serious an issue this was, how much trouble Brad could get in if this got out. So yeah, maybe he was a little bit livid.

He was at the edge of the perimeter of where they'd stopped for the night by the time Ray found him, idly looking out over the edge of the berm. He'd calmed down a little since he'd heard Ray and Walt talking by the Humvee, but that didn't mean he wasn't angry. He'd just calmed down enough that he was pretty sure he could talk to Ray without wanting to kill him. 

"Sup, homes." Ray chirped as he stepped into place next to him. 

He just hummed in response, and obviously Ray noticed that he was a little put out if the look he shot in his direction was anything to go by, "With everything that happened today, you good?" 

He sighed, shaking his head slightly before turning to face Ray. No point in beating around the bush here, "Ray, why the fuck does Walt know what's going on between us?" 

He watched as the words register in Ray's mind, before the younger man seemed to steel himself a little, "He figured it out." 

"He figured it out?"

"Yeah, alright? I told him about you after that first night, when you were still just Brad from the bar. After that, when you were introduced to us as our new team leader, he put two and two together and asked if you were the guy I'd slept with. He's my best friend, what d'you want me to do, lie to him?"

"Yes, Ray! I know he's your best friend, but it's my fucking career that's at stake here." 

Ray scoffed at that, rolling his eyes, "Oh, come on. He's not going to rat us out." 

"Guys talk, Ray. What if he lets it slip to somebody who would rat us out? It's okay for you, you're out in a couple of months anyway, this job is my career. Plus, you don't think that if it came down to it, that I wouldn't get in serious trouble for taking advantage of one of my Corporals?" He asked, looking over at him. He just, he didn't get why Ray wasn't taking this seriously. He trusted Walt, of course he did, but he just.. things sometimes got out regardless. And like he'd said, if it came to a disciplinary hearing or whatever, it could all be blown out of proportion and he could be accused of taking advantage of Ray, of using his higher rank to coerce him into something.

"I'm sorry, okay?" Ray said, holding up his hands, "What d'you want me to do, tell Walt I made it all up and that there's nothing going on?" He asked. Well yeah, the damage was already done and he knew that, he just hoped that it didn't go any further than this. 

"Hey, c'mere." Ray said quietly after a moment when he didn't answer, reaching out for him. 

He stepped back out of his space though, trying his best to keep his features schooled into something neutral - so that he wouldn't let on how furious he was, or how terrified, "Don't." He told him, shaking his head, "Just.. don't." 

"What, so that's it?" Ray asked, dropping his arms back down to his sides. 

Honestly? He didn't know. All he knew right now was that he was still so fucking angry that Ray hadn't thought, that he'd opened his mouth without thinking of the consequences first, "Just leave it, Ray." He told him. On that note, he made himself turn around and walk away, rubbing his hands over his face as he did. 

Like he said, he didn't know what his next move was. He didn't know if this was just a spat, or if he'd just called things off between them for good. All he knew right now was that he was pissed, and that he needed time to think about it when he'd calmed down.

He'd sleep on it. 

  
-x-

  
The few days following that entire incident weren't exactly among the best days of Brad's life. 

If he was being honest - and he couldn't exactly say that he was proud of it - he spent most of the day after hiding underneath the Humvee, using the excuse of chiselling off all the crap that had gathered in the axles and the undercarriage of the vehicle. Maybe he was hiding a little bit. Like he said, he wasn't proud of it, but he needed to just.. get away from everything for a little while. At least they had stopped though, that he could afford to hide underneath the Humvee for a couple of hours, and that he wasn't stuck next to Ray in the front seats. 

Speaking of Ray, they still weren't exactly talking. 

He knew that they were at a bit of an impasse - because neither of them were budging. He was just still so angry though that Ray had said anything at all when he should have known better. he knew that he'd apologised already, but he just.. he couldn't let it go just yet. So yeah, they still weren't really talking to each other. From an outside perspective, it probably wouldn't have looked as though there was anything wrong between them, mainly because he knew better than to let his personal feelings get in the way. 

He had eventually come out from underneath the Humvee when there'd been reports from Alpha that they were being overrun by Iraqi armour, and he'd snapped out of his mood long enough to bark orders at Walt and Ray, and then at the other team leaders when they continued to stand around and do nothing, "Iceman's back." He heard Poke comment as they got moving, and he rolled his eyes as he climbed up onto the berm beside where Ray was manning the Mark-19. 

What he found though, when he looked through the thermals, was that the armour that was advancing on them was actually a town. A town that wasn't coming any fucking closer to them. Still, it didn't stop Alpha from dropping ordnance on them, despite the fact that he'd instructed Ray to radio in the fact that they were actually looking at a town. Thankfully though, Alpha had misjudged the distance, so they hadn't actually flattened the town. 

"Apparently the United States Air Force thinks Brad Colbert is full of shit." Ray remarked after the bombs had been dropped, shooting a grin in his direction. He didn't respond though, just climbed down from the berm before the others tried to engage him in any further conversation on the topic. 

He tried not to take notice of Ray's slightly deflated look as he watched him walking away. 

  
-x-

  
He knew he was trying, but he just.. he didn't know what he was supposed to do over this whole situation. 

The last relationship he'd been had ended so badly - and that wasn't to say that he and Ray were in a relationship, because they most certainly weren't. Well.. not yet anyway, but that was beside the point. What he was trying to say was that the last time he'd been seriously involved with somebody, it had gone to shit. So now, what he was used to doing was retreating. He was used to backing right off once things got tough, and so he just didn't know how to handle things like this in the best way. 

It was a weird situation too - with how they'd still been acting as though there was nothing going on between them, yet he knew exactly how he felt about Ray, but they were still not actually acting on it yet, and now they were fighting about it too. It was a sticky one, and so he just didn't know the best way to approach it. 

Maybe it was a slight step in the right direction though when he was sat brushing his teeth one morning a couple of days later. They'd just gotten the warning order that they were to be moving out again soon, so he was taking advantage of the last couple of hours he had to himself. He was sat next to the Humvee as he brushed his teeth, his shirt off to let the sun at his shoulders a little. It was nice to just sit and do nothing for a little while actually, after all of the shit that they'd been dragged through lately. Ray and Trombley were sat with him, but they'd been mostly been talking between themselves and not paying much attention to him - which suited him fine actually. 

Eventually though, he was snapped out of his thoughts by Ray groaning, "Christ lover at my nine."

"Coming this way?"

"Yeah, ETA is like ten seconds." Ray warned him, before they were joined by a Lieutenant from one of the other company's. If he was being honest, he didn't actually even know his name. He barely listened really, when he announced that he was holding a brief service and wanted to know if any of them would be interested in joining him for a word of prayer. Honestly, even if he had been a Christian, he doubted he would have been interested. 

He tried his best to convey his disinterest as Ray explained that they wouldn't be joining them, but he couldn't keep the grin from creeping onto his face when Ray insisted, "The other thing is is that my team leader here - Sergeant Colbert - yeah, he was born a Hebrew and remains a practising Christ-killer. So, as purely out of respect for him, I feel as if I'm going to have to forego your festive rituals."

Once the other man had walked off, Ray turned his smile in his direction, and he couldn't help but smile back.

After that, they were kept busy with the warning order - although they were mostly just breaking into their humrat's, while listening to Poke first talking about jerking off using only the mind, and then ranting about Pocahontas once Walt had mentioned it, "Tragic, I liked Pocahontas. Wonderful music." He interjected as he tore open his own MRE, glancing at the contents. Obviously that got Poke started off on another one of his rants, and he grinned as he listened to him rattling on about the white man and the Mexicans, before Trombley added that his grandfather used to shoot Indians for money.

Soon enough, they were approached by Casey Kasem, who informed them that they were to get in formation for the C.O to address them about what had happened with the supply truck. Fucking wonderful. 

  
-x-

  
While on route to Al Hayy, their objective was to cover Alpha who were on point.

Obviously that changed though, as nearly all of their previous fucking orders had. Alpha were detached to carry out a different mission, and they were instructed to push through to Al Hayy. 

He knew it soured the mood even further throughout the Platoon though, when they found out that Alpha's mission was to recover the body of a Marine who'd been crucified in the city centre. 

  
-x-

  
Despite the fact that they were here to liberate the Iraqi's - that that was their primary objective of this entire fucking war - it certainly didn't feel like it when they were instructed to check out the hamlets nearby after reports of an RPG team that the Cobras were unable to locate. 

It was hard to believe that they were supposed to be the good guys here, when they were dragging people out of their homes at gunpoint and made to inspect their homes like they were fucking cops on a raid or some shit like that. 

He knew he wasn't the only one feeling that way too.

  
-x-

  
Outside of Al Hayy, they were tasked with setting up a roadblock. 

Charlie Company had passed through the town ahead of them, and had been taking fire all along. Somehow though, they hadn't been caught up in it. Now that they were through the town though, their Platoon had been tasked with holding it. It sounded exciting, until it came to actually doing the holding. Mainly because it involved sitting in their Humvee's at the roadblock all night, waving off any traffic who approached them. 

He was stood off to the side of the Humvee's with Gunny Wynn, although they weren't talking much as they kept a look out for any approaching cars. If he was being perfectly honest, he was bored out of his fucking mind. They'd been there all day. Walt and Reporter were around the back of the Humvee, while Ray was still sat in his seat, singing quietly to himself. 

Eventually though, Poke called their attention to a car approaching, and he nodded over to the men, "Garza, Lovell, fire warnings." He told them. Thankfully, the driver of the car understood the warning shots, and they turned back. The same couldn't be said about the truck that followed shortly after though, and he sighed as Wynn instructed the men to light it the fuck up. 

"Did they understand the warning shots?" He asked Nate after the truck had been stopped and the men inside had been gunned down. He looked over at him when he didn't respond, raising an eyebrow, "The ROE aren't a lot of help here." He reminded him. 

Nate just sighed, shaking his head, "We're all alone out here." He reminded him. And yeah, he supposed that they fucking were. Between the armed towns, and the mechanised Iraqi divisions that were just waiting to gun them down, he supposed that they were very much alone, "There's seventy of us, holding this road." Nate said again, and with that he just nodded and walked off. 

When a Corporal from Charlie Company came down to them to say that they needed Meesh's assistance up at the Charlie roadblock, Rudy was sent along with him, and Brad folded his arms as he leaned against the front of their Humvee. He watched Rudy jogging off down the road with Meesh, before glancing to his side when Ray joined him. They didn't talk though, Ray just pressed his arm against the side of Brad's as they stood together, and he didn't bother pulling it away. He was still pissed over the whole Walt thing, but he just.. he was tired of all this. 

Eventually though, Rudy came back up the road, and he raised an eyebrow as he looked over at him, "Hey, Rudy. What happened up at Charlie?" He asked, before frowning when Rudy just shook his head and walked off. Alright, well. Apparently whatever had happened had been nothing good. 

He looked up at the whistle of missiles above them, watching as the artillery hit down a couple hundred metres from them, "Shit's really pretty, isn't it?" Ray piped up, glancing in his direction for a moment. He sighed as he continued to watch the missiles, before glancing back at Ray for a moment. 

"Keep your eyes on the road, fucknuts."

  
-x-

  
Their orders were Al Kut. 

Well, the result that they were hoping for by the end of their next mission was to hold Al Kut. 

Godfather had assured them earlier that the assault on Baghdad couldn't start until Marines held Al Kut, as well as the main bridge over the Tigris. Unfortunately for them, that meant pushing straight on through another town. It would have been safer to go around the town, to bypass the entire fucking thing, but according to Godfather? The most important part of their mission now was tempo, and the quickest way to Al Kut was to push through Muwaffaqiyah, and then take the thirty kliks of highway that came after it until they reached Al Kut. 

Nate had pulled the TL's for a quick meeting earlier, explained the situation and their orders. He knew he wasn't the only one that had been a little horrified at the fact that there was to be no foot patrol before the actual mission to ensure that it was actually safe. Apparently their timetable didn't allow for that much. It wasn't just that though, it was how Nate had snapped at them that he wasn't hearing the aggressiveness he would have liked from them. That.. had surprised him, honestly. Nate had always been the one officer that he could trust to not throw them into the shit, and now? He seemed like he just wanted orders followed regardless of the consequences. It made him wonder if anything had happened, if something had been said to Nate. 

He'd wanted to leave Reporter behind for the time being, just because he really didn't like the sound of this mission. He didn't doubt that it would be short either way, but he just.. he wasn't totally sure that they were all going to be coming back from this. He hated it, the uncertainty. Poke had insisted that he stay with them though, that he was the reason they'd had such good luck with all of their bullshit missions so far. Hesitantly, Reporter had agreed to stay, but he still couldn't help but wish that Poke had kept his mouth shut. 

He was pretty on edge though - he'd already taken a handful of Ray's Ripped Fuel, and had snapped at the younger man about singing country music, but he just.. he wasn't in the mood for bullshit right now. 

Soon after that, they were on the move. 

He sighed as he shone a flashlight onto the map he was studying, trying his best to figure out where the fuck they were going. He hated this, the lack of fucking information that they were being given. He knew Nate was trying, but for the moment, it very much seemed to be 'figure it out yourselves'. 

"Brad, is that a guard rail on this side of the road?" Ray asked as they turned along the bend. 

He glanced at the other man for a moment before raising his rifle, looking through the NVG at where he'd been talking about. From where he could see though, there was no guard rail, just the shoulder off the side of the road, "It's the shoulder, it slopes." He told him, before lowering his rifle again, "I know you've got no depth perception in those NVGs, but use some common fucking sense in your situational awareness."

"It's the way that the fucking ambient light is slanting in. I can't tell if the dark areas are ditches or walls." Ray snapped, before shutting up again. He knew that things were just tense at the moment though, that they were all a little on edge and as a result were being snippy with each other. 

A little further up the road, he frowned as he watched Cobras dropped artillery on what he presumed was the town up ahead. Of course though, they had no fucking comms with the Cobras to find out what exactly they were shooting at. Why would they though, that would only make their lives so much easier right now. As well as that, the light from the artillery was washing out their NVGs, making it even more difficult for them to see what was going on.

As they approached the bridge though, Ray swerved to avoid a ditch in the road. That would have been fine though, if there hadn't been an obstacle blocking their way right in front of the bridge. According to Walt, it looked like a Connex box that had been dragged in front of the bridge. That alone set off warning bells in his head straight away. They were being ambushed here, they should have fucking known. This was why he'd asked for a foot patrol, this was exactly the reason that there should have been recon done on this mission before sending them over. 

"Ray, I need us to egress immediately. We're in a kill zone here."

"Walt, can you see the ditch a just drove past?" Ray called up to Walt. 

"It ain't a ditch, it's like a drain pipe that's been drug onto the road." Walt called back down. 

Yeah, that was it. They needed to get the fuck out of here immediately, "Ray, you need to make a three point turn here, turn around." He told him, although he managed to keep his focus on scanning the area surrounding them for the men who'd obviously set up this ambush. He was glad that Ray had obviously realised the severity of the situation that they were in though, since he did what he was told without any smart comments or arguments.

"Espera's vehicle is in front of us, we're fucking boxed in." Ray told him once he had managed to make the turn as well as he could. Apparently in the confusion, the rest of the Humvee's had continued forward after them, and now they were all packed into the kill zone with nowhere to go. They couldn't go any further forward, and they had somehow managed to fuck themselves up so badly that nobody could go back either. 

Another quick scan of the treeline though showed him what he'd been afraid of, "There are men in the trees." He murmured, firing a shot off before the man he'd been watching was able to. 

That was it though, it seemed once that first shot was fired off, everybody began shooting at once. Before he knew it, there were shots coming from every direction, and he wasn't sure who was shooting or where they were shooting at. All he knew was that he needed to keep his cool, that Ray needed to focus on trying to navigate them out of this clusterfuck while he focused on keeping them alive. 

Eventually though, shots weren't the only things that were being fired, and he tried not to flinch when RPG's starting hitting down on their position, "Ray, how's our progress egressing?" He asked, keeping his eye on his NVGs. 

"All Hitman victors, this is Two-One." Ray called into the radio, "Is it at all possible for any of you to back up?" 

He could barely make out what the fuck was happening over the radios, but it seemed that Ray was able to filter through all the bullshit chatter and put together that nobody was answering his question, "Fucking hell." He groused, before sighing as he flung open his door of the Humvee. 

A quick glance in his direction showed Brad the worst fucking possible outcome of all of this - that Ray had gotten out of the vehicle in the middle of a firefight and had ran over to Two-One Bravo's vehicle to talk directly to Lilley. He could feel his heart in his throat the second he'd stepped out of the vehicle, and he was finding it hard to breathe let alone try and focus on shooting back at the men who were shooting at them. Ray was out there - he was armed, and he had his helmet - but he was still very much out there in the open. 

He glanced back at where Ray was standing by the Two-One Bravo Humvee, screaming at Lilley to 'please back the fuck up'. He honestly could have been sick then and there when he noticed a bullet zipping past Ray's head, not quite close enough to even ping off the Kevlar, but close enough to split the lining. He wanted nothing more right now than to climb out of the Humvee and drag Ray back to the relative safety of the vehicle, but he knew it wouldn't do anybody any good if both of them were killed. 

After a moment though, Ray climbed back into the Humvee, sighing as he turned to Brad, "Not going well." He told him matter of factly, and Brad tried his best not to notice how another RPG hit down right where Ray had been standing only a moment before. 

He could feel himself calming slightly now that Ray was back in the vehicle, but he could still feel his heart beating in his throat, and he knew he was probably going to have to find somewhere to throw up once this was all over with. Stupid motherfucker, he was pretty sure Ray didn't even realise how close he'd been to being killed, "Hitman Two, this is Two-One. We are unable to move in any direction. Over." He said into the radio. 

He could feel his stomach sinking a little at the chatter over the radio - at the fact that Pappy had been hit, as well as Q-Tip. Apparently neither of their injuries were too bad, and they were both still alive, but it was still a scary thought that two of them had been hit. 

After a couple more minutes of carnage, Nate appeared at Ray's window with directions on how to get the fuck out now that the other vehicles had backed up. Apparently he'd been running on foot between the Humvee's, directing each of the drivers on how to get the fuck out of this mess. Thankfully, it seemed to have worked though, because after a couple of moments they were free to get moving, "Ray, get us the fuck out of here."

Eventually they peeled out past Bravo-Three, and he sighed shakily as Ray pulled the Humvee to a stop. For a moment, nobody spoke - which he was very thankful of, he wasn't sure what the fuck any of them were supposed to say. Eventually, he swallowed, glancing back at Ray, "Check the tires." He told him, mainly because he just didn't know what else to say to him right now. 

Thankfully, Ray didn't argue, he just nodded before climbing out of the Humvee and doing what he was told. He climbed out of the Humvee too, although he kept on walking when he did, and he didn't stop until he had reached a small clearing of trees. He barely made it out of view before he was throwing up the contents of his stomach. As pathetic as he knew it was, he just.. Ray had been literal inches from being killed tonight, he'd nearly seen it happen. So he just, he needed a moment. He stayed there for a couple of minutes before he got moving back to the rest of the Platoon, just long enough that he could calm the shaking of his hands, and drink a couple of mouthfuls of water from his bottle. 

By the time he got back though, the news had reached the others that Rudy was the new Team Two TL. Pappy was okay, but he was being medevac'd - his part in the war was over. Q-Tip had taken some shrapnel in the leg, but he was fine, he didn't even need to be medevac'd, a bandage was all it had taken to patch him up. 

He just knew that they'd gotten away very fucking lightly.

  
-x-

  
It was only after the whole clusterfuck with Third Platoon and their stuck vehicle that he slowed down for a moment, and let himself actually think about what the fuck had just happened. 

Fucking hell. 

How the fuck had they been lured into a kill zone like that? How had nobody seen that that was what was happening? Shit, they could have so easily lost somebody because of this. They were a fucking Recon Unit, they were supposed to scope out dangerous situations like this to make sure that this sort of shit didn't happen. 

He was just so relieved that - even though Pappy had been hit - that he hadn't been wounded too badly. Stafford's injuries weren't too bad either, he wouldn't even have to leave the Platoon for medical care. It could have so easily gone the other way though, Nate could've been killed when he'd been weaving through the Humvee's trying his best to organise the chaos. Ray could just as easily have been hit when he'd gotten out of the Humvee to scream at Lilley to back the fuck up. 

Shit. He swallowed against the sudden emotion that rose in him at the thought of how his heart had dropped into his ass when Ray had climbed out of the Humvee. He hadn't gone far, but it had been nearly impossible to not let his emotions get the best of him and panic when he saw the bullets zipping past Ray's Kevlar - close enough to split the lining of the Kevlar. 

He wasn't sure what the fuck he was supposed to have done if Ray had been hit, if he'd been killed. They were on professional speaking terms more than anything right now - they still hadn't exactly sorted out whether or not they were still fighting or not - but he knew that he'd never forgive himself if Ray had been killed today and they hadn't sorted this out. 

It was that realisation that had him moving, almost on autopilot, until he eventually came across Ray. He was sitting with Walt and Reporter, easy smile on his face as he playfully jabbed an elbow into Walt's side in response to whatever the other man had just said, "Corporal Person." He said as he approached, swallowing at how he could hear his voice shaking, "Ray.. a word?" He asked, biting his lip gently.

Ray just looked at him for a moment before he nodded, dragging himself to his feet. He wasn't exactly sure what Walt must've been thinking, but he found that he really didn't care either. He already knew what the situation was, and Reporter could speculate whatever the fuck he wanted, but he just.. he needed to fix this now. He needed to reassure himself that Ray was okay. 

The younger man was quiet as he followed him away, and eventually they had walked far enough away until they were around the side of one of the tents, "Homes, wh-"

"Don't you ever fucking pull a stunt like that again, you hear me?" 

"Excuse me?"

"Getting out of the Humvee in the middle of a fire fight like that. You stupid fuck, you could've b-"

"Oh, fuck off, Brad. You don't get to start this shit again, taking out your shit on me because you're pissed off. I'm not gonna stand here and let you i-"

He cut Ray off by just wrapping his arms around him and pulling him close, pressing his face into the junction of where his neck met his shoulder. He could feel himself shaking where he was holding onto Ray, but he just.. he didn't even have the energy right now to act like the Iceman. He just needed to remind himself that Ray was there and that he was alive. After a moment, he felt Ray's arms tentatively come up around him too, one of his hands gently stroking over his back, "Brad.." 

"I'm not mad at you, I'm not. I just.. I can't lose you." 

Ray pulled back slightly after a moment, just far enough that he could look up at him, although their arms were still around each other, "You're not gonna." He told him, biting his lip gently as he looked up at Brad, "I'm fine." 

"Just please don't pull that shit again. I can't.. you don't realise how close you were to being hit, and I can't lose you out here, not wh-"

"Brad.. Brad." Ray interrupted him, reaching up to cup his face between his hands instead, "I'm gonna kiss you now, okay?" 

He didn't say anything in response, but he just nodded, leaning down to meet Ray's mouth with his own when the younger man reached up to kiss him. He put his arms around Ray again, dragging him a little closer so that he was flush against his body. He just, this was what he needed, he needed to reassure himself that Ray was okay. He pulled away slightly after a moment, although he let his forehead still rest against Ray's, close enough for them to breathe the same air.

"Hey." Ray murmured after a moment, squeezing his fingers gently where they rested on Brad's hips, "I'm sorry about the whole Walt thing."

"Its okay, just.. I need you to understand that it's not something to be taken lightly."

"I know that, homes. I do. I didn't think." 

He just nodded, giving him a small smile before ducking his head down to press a soft kiss to the corner of his mouth. He still didn't exactly want people knowing, but he just.. he knew really that they could trust Walt, and it didn't even seem like that big of an issue anymore when they could have so easily been killed today. 

"So we're okay?" Ray asked after a moment.

He just smiled and nodded, "Yeah, we're okay." 

Ray's smile turned a little more mischievous after a moment, and he glanced past Brad's shoulder to see if there was anybody else wandering around where they were. Once he was satisfied that they were alone, he pushed his hands underneath the fabric of Brad's MOPP suit jacket, dragging his fingers along the bare skin he could reach then, "We're pretty hidden back here, just so you know."

He knew that they shouldn't, that it was a very fucking stupid idea to even consider what Ray was asking him here, but he also couldn't really find it in him to say no - not when Ray was pressing his fingers into his hips and dragging his mouth along the curve of his jaw. 

Besides, they had just made up. He was tired of the holding off, of trying to keep their hands off each other. And like Ray had just said - they were pretty hidden back here too. The only people who knew they'd even gone off together were Walt and Reporter, and since Walt knew the situation; he was pretty sure he'd ward Reporter off if he decided to come follow them or anything. 

So he ducked down to press his mouth to Ray's neck as he pulled him closer, gently scraping his teeth along the skin, "Okay, on one condition." He murmured as he trailed his lips up to his ear, "I need you to be quick, can you do that for me?" He asked. Ray just nodded, his breath hitching a little again as Brad nipped gently at the skin of his neck. 

"And I need you to be quiet, are you sure you can do that too?" He asked, and he couldn't help but grin when Ray shoved him lightly, "I won't be quiet if you don't get on with it, bitch. Come on." He groused, leaning up to press his lips to Brad's again quickly. He didn't waste any time then in undoing zippers and buttons, Brad doing his best to keep up with shoving their MOPP suits out of the way. It would have been a lot easier if they actually had the time or the cover to properly strip out of their suits, but he knew that they really couldn't afford that much right now. It was risky enough already doing what they doing, so they really just had to make do. 

He leaned down to press his mouth to Ray's again as he managed to get a hand around both of their cocks, backing Ray up until his back was against a stack of crates that was stacked up behind he tent. Ideally, he'd have liked to drop to his knees and take Ray apart with his mouth, but he just.. it had been weeks since any of them had had sort of shower that didn't involve baby wipes. So the idea of putting his mouth anywhere near a cock that hadn't been properly washed in that long was a little nasty, and he was pretty sure that Ray understood that - considering he hadn't made any move to drop to his knees either. 

Besides, like he said, they had to be quick and to the point. They didn't exactly have the luxury of taking their time here. 

So he just started to move his hand, quickly jerking them off while he cupped his other hand around the curve of Ray's jaw, bringing their lips together again. It wasn't exactly an ideal situation, if he was being perfectly honest. It was too dry, plus their MOPP suits were getting in the way, and he was half keeping an eye on their surroundings to make sure that they wouldn't be caught. Still, he knew that this wasn't supposed to be anything slow or romantic, it was more.. desperation, rather than anything else. He was just grateful that they were both still alive. 

"I've been thinking about this since we left the fucking States." He breathed into Ray's ear, grinning when he felt Ray fisting his hands in the fabric of his MOPP suit at his hips, "You have no idea how hard it's been to keep my hands off you."

Ray just moaned softly under his breath at that, pushing his hips up into Brad's touch, "You think it's been easy for me either?" He asked, leaning up on his tiptoes to press another kiss to his lips. He let his teeth bite down gently on Brad's lower lip for a moment, pulling it out slightly as he pulled back from the kiss. 

He'd tried his best not to think about it while they were here, to keep everything between himself and Ray pushed right down until they were back in the States. He'd slipped up a couple of times, let himself kiss Ray here and there. Overall though, he had tried his best to keep it professional. But he just.. it was nearly impossible while Ray was right there. He couldn't help but worry about him and want to keep him safe from everything that was happening here. He knew that that was fucking ridiculous, since - despite the fact that he was short and wiry and played the idiot - he knew that Ray could be lethal when given the chance. He wouldn't have been in the toughest unit of the whole USMC if he wasn't able to look after himself. Still, he couldn't help wanting to protect him. 

He was cut off from his train of thought by the sound of Ray whining low in his throat again, dropping his forehead to Brad's shoulder with a quiet 'fuck' muttered under his breath. He just tightened his fingers slightly in response, leaning a little further into Ray until he was totally pressed between the stack of crates and Brad's body, "It won't be long until we're home, and then you're going to come back to my place with me. I'm going to take my time with you - lay you out on my bed, and fuck you so hard and so deep that you won't even remember your own name." He growled, punctuating his sentence with a soft bite to the curve of Ray's jaw. 

It seemed that that was all Ray needed to push him over the edge, and he tensed as he came, dropping his head back against the stack of crates with a dull thump, "Fuck, Brad.. I- oh, shit." He whined, his fingers pressing in hard where they were resting on Brad's hips, "Shit.. oh, fuck, I love you." 

He was a little taken aback by Ray's words, but also at how his orgasm tore through him after a moment. He wasn't going to admit that it was Ray saying he loved him that pushed him over the edge, that was maybe a little bit pathetic, but he supposed.. here they were. 

After a moment where neither of them moved, the sound of their harsh breathing the only thing he could hear, he eventually nudged at Ray's cheek with his nose, "Hey, c'mon, we can't stay here." He murmured. They were quiet as they made themselves presentable, zipping back up their MOPP suits and tucking themselves away. Once they had though, he stilled Ray with a hand on his wrist, biting his lip gently for a moment as he looked down at him. Ray just smiled back at him, "You all squared away, Iceman?" He asked. His voice was light though, and he had a smile on his face, so Brad didn't worry about it. 

"Yeah." He said with a nod, still holding onto Ray's wrist. He leaned down after a moment to kiss him again, pressing the fingers of his other hand against his cheek. After a moment, he felt Ray shake his wrist out of his grip, sliding his fingers in between Brad's instead, "And Ray.. me too." He said softly once he had pulled away slightly. He couldn't say it back, not yet, but he just hoped that Ray understood that he did feel it too. 

Thankfully, Ray just smiled up at him, gently knocking him with his shoulder, "I know, c'mon. As much as I'd love to see you try to come up with an explanation for why we're back here if anyone caught us, it's probably best we're not caught." He teased with a grin, playfully pushing Brad back in the direction that they'd come from. 

"By the way." Ray started again after a moment as they walked, "Walt totally knows what we were up to back there."

"Shut the fuck up, Ray." He groused, although he couldn't quite hold back the smile on his lips. 

  
-x-

  
The next morning, he was feeling a little bit better about the whole thing. 

They finally made it through Muwaffaqiyah, by taking an alternate route and bypassing the bridge altogether. He hadn't been surprised to hear that there was an alternate route - it only made sense that they'd first try to send them through the path of most resistance. Either way, what was done was done, and they had finally made it through the town. 

Their orders once they got through, was to set up another roadblock on the main MSR on the Northeast. He couldn't exactly say he was happy about that though, he fucking hated setting up roadblocks - it only meant a hell of a lot of standing around doing nothing. 

Still, they were trying out a new technique for stopping the cars at the roadblock, by using smoke grenades instead of firing warning shots. It was safer this way, especially since there were still civilians wandering around. The last thing they wanted was for them to accidentally shoot one of them because they'd walked in the way of the warning shots. He knew Nate didn't like the idea, but Charlie Company had already started using the smoke grenades, and they'd been having success. It was worth a shot. 

Shortly after Nate had okay'd it, a vehicle approached the roadblock, and he turned to face it with a sigh, "Don't fire unless they drive through." He instructed the men, "And I give the order." He told them. Walt crouched by his side with his rifle aimed, while he loaded his smoke grenade and fired it off into the road. He was glad to see that the driver obviously understood the meaning of the smoke, and turned tail before heading back down the MSR. He knew Nate had been worried, so he was just glad that it had worked. 

For a moment, they turned their attention to the controlled detonation of the ordnance that they had come across earlier in the field, before Poke pointed out that they had another car heading in their direction. 

He loaded another smoke grenade, firing it off into the road. The car didn't stop though, it just approached them through the smoke, and before he even realised what had happened, Walt was firing off shots at the car, "Fuck, Walt!" He snapped, turning to the other man as the car skidded to a halt, "You didn't even fire a warning shot. That was a wounding shot, motherfucker." He shouted at him, before realising that the younger man seemed to be frozen where he was crouched, "You okay?"

"The car kept coming." Walt murmured, his voice shaky as he rose to his feet. 

"Yeah.. come on, sit down." He told him, leading Walt back to the Humvee and opening the door to where Reporter usually sat, sitting him down. He knew it had just been a fucking mistake, that Walt hadn't intended to shoot the driver. It had been a reflex action, one that had unfortunately just been extremely accurate. 

"It's alright, we're just doing our jobs." He told him, although he wished Garza and Trombley would shut the fuck up rather than admiring Walt's shooting. Walt looked as though he was about to cry though, and honestly? Brad's heart bled for him. He knew Walt was a good kid, that he certainly hadn't meant for this to happen. 

He was snapped out of his thoughts by Nate reporting the sit-rep over the radios - apparently Battalion had cleared Muwaffaqiyah, and they were now to advance up to Al Kut. With a quick glance back in Walt's direction, he sighed at the vacant look on his face, before shaking his head. He'd talk to him later. For now, they had their orders. 

"Mount up." He called to the men, "We're Oscar Mike."

  
-x-

  
It was shortly after that that they got word that the war was starting to wind down. 

On one hand, he knew that they should all be relieved that their part in the war was basically over. They'd gotten through this without getting too deep into the shit, and the only man that they had lost throughout the whole thing was Pappy - and he was still alive and in a military hospital in Spain. Things could have been far worse, and he knew that, but he just.. he couldn't help the disappointment he felt at the whole thing. 

They were the First Recon Marines, they were supposed to be the deadliest motherfuckers in the whole of the USMC, and yet, all they had done was drive around in Humvee's. They hadn't even gotten one legit recon mission. So yeah, he was maybe a little put out. 

Still, he knew that they still had more pressing things to think about other than how he was pissed off that their part in the war was pretty much over and done with. Walt was.. well, he wouldn't quite say that he was handling things well. Ever since he'd shot the man in the car, the younger man seemed to have withdrawn right into himself. He'd tried talking to him already, to tell him that it wasn't his fault, that they were just doing their jobs, but it seemed that the words had gone right over his head. It was obvious he didn't believe it for a second. He knew though that Ray was keeping an eye out for him too, which he couldn't be more grateful for. 

Half of the Platoon were sick too, crippled with some sort of stomach bug that had swarmed through. Thankfully, none of the men in his team were too sick, Trombley was looking a little green around the gills, but he hadn't been flattened by it like some of the men in the other teams. He was pretty sure Stinetorf and Brunmeier were about to shit themselves to death. Obviously Ray's allergies had chosen to act up now though - he wasn't doing too bad, but Brad was still keeping an eye on him. 

For now, they were still doing fuck all. 

The new MREs had been passed around this morning, the ones with the milkshake packets. He knew that the men had been delighted at that, but he knew it was only a matter of fact before he had to watch Ray being disgusting with one, and he really was not in the mood right for it right now. He was sat in the drivers seat of the Humvee, his legs propped up on the frame of the window. Trombley was sat up at the turret, and Walt was sitting on the ground by the Humvee, trying to get through his action report that Nate had asked him to write up. He had no idea where Ray and Reporter were, but he was pretty sure they were keeping themselves occupied well enough. 

After a moment though, Ray sauntered around the side of the Humvee, dropping a hand to the back of Walt's head, "Hey, Walt. Feel the love." He teased as he playfully humped the other man from behind, "Baby.." He started, when Walt didn't respond at all. 

"Leave me the fuck alone." Walt snapped, and thankfully, Ray took the hint and did what he was asked, dropping down to sit on the ground next to the Humvee, underneath where Brad was sitting, "Finally, he speaks." He groused, before tipping back the milkshake that he was holding. Yeah, he fucking knew it. He knew once they were given these new milkshakes that he wasn't going to get away with not seeing Ray with it all over his goddamn self. 

"I liked it better when we were starving." He started, shooting a quick glance down at Ray, "Then I didn't have to see shit all over your face."

"Want some?" Ray asked, and he couldn't help but roll his eyes. 

Nate approached them after a moment, giving them a quick smile as he leaned against the side of the Humvee. Brad didn't miss the slightly exasperated way he looked at Ray for a moment though, considering the younger man was still covered in milkshake, "Walt, finish your report and get it to me ASAP." He told him quietly, "You did nothing wrong, but we're gonna see if there's a better way to stop these cars."

"Walt's got a great way, LT." Ray piped up again, "Shoot the driver, stop the car."

He rolled his eyes at both the 'if looks could kill' way that Walt looked at Ray then, and the shit-eating grin that Ray shot back at Walt, before climbing out of the Humvee and following off after Nate until they were a couple of steps away, just so that they were out of earshot of the others, "Sir, it's vital." He murmured, ducking in close enough that the other man could hear him, "Hasser will write his way clear, but we're fast becoming an army of occupation. We can't just shoot these civilians like we're doing." He told him, and he couldn't help but notice how Ray was watching them while trying not to look like he was watching them. 

Nate just sighed, biting his lip gently, "Marines aren't cops, Brad. We're an aggressive force." He said with a shrug, although he seemed just as fed up about the whole thing as Brad felt. He knew that Nate had it tougher than any of them though, considering he was under scrutiny from the higher-ups too on top of everything else, "That said, I'll see what we can do."

He was interrupted in saying anything further by Poke shouting words of encouragement over in Walt's direction, although he missed exactly what the other man had said due to the explosions over the other side of the berm. He did catch Trombley's question though of 'didn't we kick their asses already?'. Shooting a quick look in Nate's direction, the other man just smiled slightly and shrugged before nodding at him. 

Figuring that they were done here, he walked back to the Humvee, glancing down at Ray as he tipped back the rest of his milkshake, "This is really interesting, Brad." Ray started as he approached, and he raised an eyebrow as he waited for him to continue, "Y'know, the Iraqi's don't really seem good at fighting, but they never really completely surrender either."

Usually he'd have humoured Ray, let him drag him into some sort of conversation and listen to the bullshit that he spewed, and whatever ridiculous theories he usually had to accompany said bullshit. But right now, he just really wasn't in the mood for it. So he crouched down until he was at the younger man's level, "Put down that fucking milkshake, and dig a fucking hole."

"Why, so I can be more like teacher's pet?" Ray asked, glancing up at him with a grin as he climbed back into the Humvee. It seemed that the younger man had no problems in differentiating between when Brad was specifically pissed off with him, and when he was just in a pissy mood in general. He was pretty sure he needed that right now though, rather than Ray being all doom and gloom alongside him. 

"That's exactly it, you should be more like Trombley."

"More like Trombley?" Ray asked - now sounding a little outraged - before standing up to look through the window of the Humvee at Brad, "More like Trombley?!" He asked again, now raising his voice to catch the attention of any Marines that were close by. 

Brad just looked at him, and when the other Marines started up a steady chant of 'Whopper Junior', Ray grinned and shot a wink at him. Okay, the younger man obviously knew how to press every single one of his buttons, but it was clear that he knew how to cheer him up a little too. He just gave him back a small smile, before glancing in Walt's direction when he noticed him getting up from the ground, "Hey, Walt." He said when he noticed that he'd left his rifle on the ground, before sighing as he left it there and walked off. 

Glancing back in Ray's direction for a moment, the other man just shrugged, "He'll be okay, homes. He just needs time."

"Yeah." He said with a nod, biting his lip gently. Ray just reached through the window, squeezing his shoulder gently for a moment before he turned to follow off after Walt. 

He knew that Ray was right, that Walt just needed a little time to come to terms with what had happened and to try and make his peace with it, but he just hoped that he wouldn't let this whole shitstorm get the better of him. Walt was a good guy that had made a mistake, but that seemed to be the entire fucking MO of this war so far, so he just.. he hoped that this wouldn't break him. 

  
-x-

  
"This is really fucking shitty." Ray groused later on that night, as they were sat by the Humvee's. 

He couldn't help but agree actually. They were dug in for the night, and they had just been joined by Rudy who had told them that Lovell's team was currently out inspecting a dead T-72 tank that was out in the field - as per Griego's orders. Why that order had been passed, he had no fucking clue. It was obvious that there had been no real need for that tank to have been inspected, and that it was just that Griego was looking to gain some points. So again, he had no idea why the Gunnery Sergeant hadn't been told to shove his patrol up his ass. 

"Ray, things have been shitty ever since the start of this war. It's just that people are finally starting to realise it."

"Yeah. But can we talk about Command for a second? That meeting that Godfather had with the officers earlier on - is anyone else a little concerned that he sounded fucking happy about the fact that Colonel Dowdy was relieved of both his command and the ammo for his sidearm?" Ray asked, glancing over at him with an eyebrow raised. 

He knew it was no secret really that Ray tended to listen in on the company comms whenever there was an important meeting called. Well, maybe it was still a secret to the officers, but he knew that half of the men in the company were totally aware of the fact. He really shouldn't have been doing it, but he hadn't been caught yet, and Brad had to admit that it did come in handy for finding out shit. Still, as his team leader, he had to at least pretend to reprimand him for it, "Ray, how many times do I have to tell you that you're going to get yourself in trouble if you keep eavesdropping on the officers?"

"I'm not eavesdropping, homes. I'm the Platoon RTO, listening to the radios is my job."

He just smiled and rolled his eyes, throwing the wrapper from his MRE over at him. He knew it wasn't that big a deal really, it wasn't like Ray was hacking into the comms or anything - he'd been given all the frequencies. He wasn't being stupid with it either, Brad knew that much, he was just keeping an eye on shit that was being said, "Whatever, don't blame me if Godfather catches your ass listening to something you shouldn't be." He told him, before turning his attention back to Rudy, "Back to this patrol though, how the fuck did Casey Kasem get away with ordering that?"

"He asked, Nate okay'd it." Rudy explained with a shrug, and Brad raised his eyebrows in response. He couldn't quite believe that actually, Nate was supposed to be the one officer they had out here who's head was screwed on properly, and here he was giving the okay on bullshit missions like this one?

"That's another thing, actually." Ray piped up again, "Is anyone else a little worried that Nate has finally caught the same kind of crazy as all the other officers?"

"I'm sure he had his reasons." He hoped so anyway. He knew that command had their eye on Nate at the moment, so he hoped that maybe the LT was just playing it safe for the moment and trying not to do anything to piss them off. While breaking the news about Colonel Dowdy in that meeting earlier, Godfather had mentioned that he too had a long memory. While that was all he'd said on the subject, they all knew that that was supposed to be a warning. 

Ray just hummed, folding his arms and settling further down where he was sat against the side of the Humvee as Rudy got back up, "I'm gonna go check on the guys." He told Brad, patting him on the shoulder before walking off. 

He watched him go for a moment before turning back to Ray, "You alright?" He asked. He knew that they were all getting a little tetchy, that it was just frustration getting the better of them. So he was trying to keep an eye on his team, make sure that none of them were starting to lose the plot. He was still worried about Walt, but he knew that Ray was looking out for him too. In all fairness too - Ray was probably better equipped to look out for Walt better than he was. He and Walt liked and respected each other, he knew that, but he also knew that Ray and Walt were closer than he and Walt would ever be. So he was at least confident that there was somebody else keep an eye on him. 

Ray just nodded, shooting a smile in his direction, "Yeah, I'm good." He said, sliding his foot out to knock his boot against the side of Brad's, leaving his foot resting against his afterwards, "You good?"

"Yeah. It's just.. like you said, this is shitty."

Ray just watched him for a moment before shrugging, hooking his ankle over Brad's instead, "I know, Brad." He said, before smiling at him, "Why don't you try catch some sleep, I'll be up anyway."

"You sure?"

"Yeah, fuck off and give me a bit of peace here."

He couldn't help but smile and roll his eyes at that as he climbed to his feet, letting his hand drop to Ray's shoulder for a brief moment as he passed him. 

  
-x-

  
He tried his best to act professional and magnanimous when they were come across by hundreds of refugees from Baghdad, he really did. 

Their orders were to set up roadblocks, to escort them past the roadblocks in manageable groups to ensure that there were no suicide bombers among them. It was an easy enough task, and he had no problems in keeping himself at an arms distance from the people until a woman stopped at his side to thank him for letting them pass in their own country, and to accuse them of participating in a war of aggression. He hated to admit that it had shaken him a little - that the Iraqi civilians were seeing them as the bad guys as well as the Saddam loyalists. It had though. 

So he hadn't been expecting it when another woman approached him and pressed her baby into his arms. Caught off guard, he took the baby, looking at the woman with wide panicked eyes, "No, well.. ma'am don't- don't give that thing to me." He told her as he tried to give the baby back to her, athough she continued to just talk at him in Arabic, "No, I understand. I understand. Just.." He tried to explain. 

He caught Ray's eye over the woman's head as he tried to give her back the baby, giving him a pleading look to help him out here. Ray just laughed at him though, turning back to help Q-Tip and Christeson pass out MRE's. 

Asshole. 

He didn't do babies. He didn't know what to do with them, and he was just generally awkward and unhelpful when it came to babies. So he just tried his best to stay away from them. Ray knew this, he had mentioned before that he didn't know what to do when it came to them, and yet he was just laughing at him. 

They weren't laughing shortly after though, when Two-One Bravo accidentally killed a civilian with a smoke grenade while trying to ward off an approaching car. 

  
-x-

  
A couple of nights later, they had finally stopped at a POG camp.

He knew that nobody was saying what was on all of their minds, but that they were definitely all thinking it. The fact that they had stopped at this camp pretty much meant that they were done. They wouldn't be going to Baghdad, they'd probably still be here by the time that the American troops reached the city. He knew he should be relieved, but honestly? He was just fucking disappointed. 

This entire tour had been a waste of their training and resources, and he was maybe feeling a little sour over the whole thing. 

It was late. Walt and Ray were sleeping in the Humvee, Trombley was sat in the command vehicle with Q-Tip and Christeson, and he was pretty sure Reporter was off talking to Chaffin and Jacks. He was sitting against the hood of the Humvee, his arms folded. He glanced up when he noticed Nate approaching, giving him a small smile, "Sir." He greeted, sliding over slightly to give him room to sit down. 

"Brad." Nate said with a smile in return, sitting next to him, "You all squared away?"

"Yessir."

He was glad to see that Nate seemed to be doing okay. Rudy had told them afterwards that Nate had actually okay'd that bullshit patrol to Casey Kasem when he'd been half asleep and hadn't realised what he was agreeing to - which made a lot of sense actually. Not only that, but that he'd chewed Casey Kasem out for it afterwards, threatening him that he wasn't to dare fuck with his men again. It had been pretty badass actually, according to Rudy. Still, he was glad that that was all that it was, that it wasn't Nate starting to lose his mind like the other officers were. 

"Are you sure you're okay, Brad?" Nate asked him after a moment, raising an eyebrow. 

He looked back at him for a second, before sighing and shrugging, "It's over for us. We won't be a part of the show in Baghdad." He said with a shrug, before looking back down at the ground in front of him, "This wasn't what we trained for. I just wanted to get one real recon mission in this war. Putting us in these is an affront to my warrior spirit." He muttered as he glanced back at the Humvee behind him, catching a glimpse of Ray asleep in the driver's seat with his head resting against the frame of the window, "I'm a hunter. Not a fucking truck driver corralling gun platforms."

"Brad, we were the fucking first boots on the ground in the American invasion of Mesopotamia. And you got your men out alive." Nate told him, his voice firm. He knew that that was the most important thing, he supposed. They were all still alive - that was what counted. 

"Might be sad about not getting your mission, but for me? I gotta tell you, I'm glad this is over" Nate continued after a moment, offering him a small smile.

He knew that that was the difference between himself and Nate though. This moment right here. Nate wasn't a lifer, that much was becoming fairly obvious to him. He couldn't say he blamed him though, Nate had been through the shit with this tour, and for somebody who wasn't dedicated to spending his entire life doing this? It had to have been a little shitty to try and handle. So yeah, he didn't blame him. As for him though, this was his career. For him, it would never really be over. Sure, this tour would be over soon.. but then there'd be the next one, and the next one. 

Glancing back at Nate, he smiled at him again, "Yeah, it's good that this is over."

  
-x-

  
The POG camp was.. well, it was pretty much exactly what he had expected from a POG camp. 

Not that he was complaining though, they finally had working latrines for the first time in weeks. It shouldn't have been as much of a luxury as it felt to finally take a shit in a proper toilet rather than in a hole in the ground, but here they were.

The general feeling throughout the Platoon seemed to be somewhat uplifted though, especially compared to what the mood had been last week. He could see it in the men that they were relieved that this was over. He couldn't say he blamed them either, it had been a shitty few weeks, and he knew a lot of them were sick of the whole fucking situation. He had to admit that yeah, he was still a little bit disappointed that they hadn't gotten a proper recon mission, but it was nice to be able to relax for a little while too. 

He was sat with Reporter for the time being - the other man quietly writing away in his journal while he cleaned his rifle next to him. It was a comfortable silence though, he wasn't trying to come up with something to say to fill the silence, and he could tell that the other man wasn't either. They'd only known each other a matter of weeks, but he could honestly say that he'd grown to like Reporter. When they'd first been told back at Mathilda that there'd be a reporter joining them, he'd silently cursed whoever had decided to put him in his Humvee, but he could admit now that he considered him a friend. 

For the most part, he was just listening to the idle chatter from the men nearest to them while he cleaned his rifle, his shirt off to soak up a little of the sun beating down on them. Every now and again, Reporter asked him a question or fact checked some information with him, but they were mostly sat in silence. 

"Hey, Brad." Reporter started after a couple of minutes though, putting down his journal as he turned to him, "What would you want to be if you weren't a Marine?" 

Brad just looked at him for a moment, chewing thoughtfully at his lower lip. If he was being honest, he hadn't given it that much thought. He'd joined the Corps back in '95, when he had just turned twenty-one. He hadn't exactly had a different career path in mind - back then, his plans had simply been to marry Katie. He hadn't had an ideal career in mind, and then he'd joined the Corps and the rest was history. 

So without an answer in mind, he simply put his rifle to the side and climbed to his feet, before taking off. 

He knew that he was drawing attention to himself - running through the field as he was with his arms outstretched like an airplane, but honestly? He really couldn't have cared less. It was nice to just not care for a couple of minutes, to forget about the responsibility and the repercussions of everything, to forget about the entire fucking war that they were waging all around them. It was the first time he'd felt fucking free in weeks. He smiled to himself when he heard one of the other men - he couldn't tell exactly who - announcing 'all stations be advised, Sergeant Colbert is wings level, can somebody clear him hot?'. Like he'd said though, he really couldn't give a fuck about who was laughing at him.

He wasn't sure if he should have been surprised or not at the fact that he could pick out Ray's surprised voice over anybody else's, sounding incredulous as he asked "What'd you give him some Rolling Stone drugs, or something? What the fuck did you do to him?"

After a couple of minutes of this, he dropped to his knees a couple of feet from both Ray and Reporter, a grin splitting his face as he tried to catch his breath. He wasn't sure that he liked the concerned look on Ray's face, but honestly? He felt good at getting that out of his system, "Better now." He announced with a smile, before climbing to his feet, "Ray, I want you to gather the team." He told him, scooping up his t-shirt and pulling it back on as he walked back to the Humvee. 

He'd been keeping an eye on one of the rucksacks he had wedged into the back of the Humvee, making sure that none of the other men got their hands on it. It had been pretty tough leaving it there, especially when they'd been on one meal a day and starving, but he knew that the right moment would come that he could share this with the men - and what better day than today. 

Dragging the bag back with him to where Ray had managed to gather Team One, he dropped down to sit next to Ray, "So, there's been something I've been keeping from you." He told them as he rummaged through the bag, flashing a quick wink at Trombley when he caught his eye.

"I wasn't sure we were gonna live to share this moment." He shrugged, trying his best to keep a straight face as he pulled the cans of Chef Boyardee ravioli out of the bag, although he couldn't quite hold back his grin when Ray gasped. He'd wanted to wait until things settled down a little before he shared this with them, until they were sure that they weren't going to be gunned down or ambushed - and he was pretty sure right now was probably the safest that they'd been in a long time, it just happened to be a happy accident too that this was the day it had fallen on. Things were easy and relaxed right now, they could sit around and laugh and enjoy their meal - even if it was cold ravioli from a can. "Trombley, get a fire going." He told him as he passed the cans around, "Walt, here." 

"You deceiving, conniving, Hebrew motherfucker. How were you gonna keep this from your dearest pal Ray-Ray?" The younger man asked as he opened his own can, smiling over at Brad. 

"I got one more secret to share." He told him, grinning as he pulled the skin mag out from the bottom of the bag. There were a few floating around the Platoon - as well as the photo of Reporter's girlfriend - but this one was brand new. No sticky pages - which he was pretty sure couldn't have been said about Reporter's photo at this point.

"Juggs!" Ray screeched, his ravioli momentarily forgotten about as he leaned over to try and grab the magazine from Brad's grip. He was expecting that, what he wasn't expecting was for Reporter to try and grab it from behind him, "No, no, no, no, wait, wait, not yet! I need some time with this alone!" He teased with a grin, holding the magazine out of Ray's reach when he made another grab for it, "Just calm down! You'll get your sloppy seconds with Jasmine. Ray, you gotta share with Trombley."

"What?! He'll kill her!"

"Eat, fuck, kill. All the same, right?" Trombley piped up with a grin of his own. 

"Yeah, all the time if you're a fucking psycho! Brad, I'm telling you, I fear for Jasmine."

While Ray then bickered with Reporter about his girlfriend's picture - and how she was now doing the rounds of H&S Company - Brad smiled as they were joined by Two-One Bravo, Lilley and Garza trailing ahead of the other three. He was glad that they had this actually, out on the road he'd been stuck with Ray, Walt, Reporter, and Trombley. Not that that was a bad thing, he couldn't have picked better guys to be in the Humvee with, but it was nice to be able to sit around with the other guys too for a while. 

He handed out the rest of the cans to the others that had just joined, before holding one out to Poke, who was watching them with an eyebrow raised, "Beefaroni?" He asked, before frowning when the other man rolled his eyes, "What's your problem?"

"Last time the white man gave my people something? It was blankets laced with Typhoid." 

He couldn't help but roll his eyes at that, still holding the can out to him, "Poke, can't we all just get along?" He asked, before grinning and tossing the can over to Poke when he laughed and held out his hand for it. He knew Poke well enough by now to not let things get all serious when he started complaining about the white man. He knew that most of the time he was only kidding. 

He turned back to Reporter for a moment while they ate their ravioli, tuning out the other guys talking and explaining that he'd had these with him all along and that he just wanted to wait until things had quietened down a little before breaking them out. It would have been easier, he knew, to say nothing about any of it. He'd certainly thought about it more than once, but he just.. these guys had become his little family, so he was glad that he'd held out and hadn't snuck off to eat them by himself back when they'd been starving. 

He glanced back over though when he heard Poke pointing out 'shoot some civilians, get a reputation'. Mainly because he was still pretty fucking concerned about Walt. He knew that Ray had been looking out for him, but he just.. he was still worried. So he was concerned about how he'd take that comment. It seemed Ray was too, as he turned to Walt after a moment, "Walt, hey. He didn't mean that." He told him, and- oh, for fucks sake. He should have known that Ray wouldn't have been capable of eating the ravioli with his spoon like a normal fucking human being. He hadn't noticed before, but it seemed that Ray had just opened the can and had poured the contents straight into his mouth. Or that was what he was guessing anyway, if the way the younger man was covered in sauce was anything to go by. 

He was about to tell him to fucking clean himself up, although he stopped when he noticed the smile slowly creeping over Walt's face as he looked at him. Huh. Okay, Ray was an idiot, but maybe he was onto something here. Eventually, Walt couldn't seem to be able to hold his smile back any longer, and he laughed as he shook his head, "You're a fucking messed up hick. You can't even eat ravioli." He said with a grin. 

"What, I'm eating ravioli." Ray said indignantly, although his mouth was full as he did, and there was sauce dripping from his chin. He grinned after a moment though as the men started to laugh. Okay, he had to give him that. He wasn't going to deny the fact that Ray was a Whisky-Tango idiot, but he had a way of brightening spirits and holding the others together better than anyone else Brad knew. 

He couldn't have been more fucking thankful to have him around. 

  
-x-

  
He was sitting in the Humvee later on that afternoon by the time Ray found him again. 

He'd trailed off away from the others after a while, leaving them to their Beefaroni while he'd gone for a walk. The camp wasn't exactly big, it was nowhere near as big as Mathilda had been, but it was nice to be able to stretch his legs a little without worrying that his head was about to be shot off. Once he'd had enough of strolling around the camp, he'd gone back to the Humvee and climbed into his own seat, switching on his Blue-Force Tracker. Okay, so the novelty of it should probably have worn off a little by now, but he was still fascinated with the tech. It had come in handy anyway, from time to time. 

He wasn't sure exactly where the other men had dispersed to, but he'd passed Lilley and Chaffin sparring when he was on the way to the Humvee - Trombley, Stiney, Leon and Walt sitting around watching them. He'd been relieved to see Walt smiling and animatedly talking to the other guys. Lately, he seemed to have been permanently sat underneath a black cloud, so he was glad to see that he'd brightened up a little. He knew that they had Ray to thank for that though. 

He knew that Nate and Gunny Wynn had been called off for some meeting with Godfather, along with Schwetje and Casey Kasem and the other officers - probably for some bullshit speech from Godfather about how they were either a shining example of what Recon Marines should be like, or how they were a disappointment to the entire Marine Corps. Either one was equally as likely at this point. He just knew that he was glad the meeting hadn't extended down as far as team leaders. 

Speaking of Ray, he glanced over when the door on the driver's side of the Humvee opened, the younger man climbing into his own seat, "Hey, was looking for you." 

He smiled as he switched off the Blue Force Tracker, turning more in his seat to face Ray instead, "They don't need me for anything, do they?" 

"Nope, just lil old me. What're you doing out here?" 

"Ah.. just playing with the Blue Force Tracker, y'know, the usual." He said with a small smile, and Ray laughed in response. He loved Ray's laugh actually, it was young and carefree and - as cheesy as it was, and he'd never be admitting it to anyone ever - it brought a smile to Brad's face more often than it didn't. 

"Y'know, that was really fucking nice what you did for the guys back there." Ray started again after a moment, and when Brad glanced back in his direction he was smiling, "It cheered them up a hell of a lot." 

"That was you - and Walt is right, you are a fucking messed up hick." 

"Oh please. As charming and hilarious as we all know I am, that was all on you, Iceman." He said with a grin, "Who the fuck came up with that nickname anyway? It's bullshit, you're a total fucking sweetheart." 

"I am not a sweetheart." He groused, turning back in the direction of his Blue Force Tracker, although he didn't turn it back on. He wasn't a sweetheart! He'd earned the nickname and the reputation of the Iceman. Still, he supposed that he really didn't have to have kept those little gifts for the men. He really had had no motivation for doing it other than to brighten their spirits a little, so he supposed he really couldn't complain about Ray saying he was nice. 

"Yeah, and the photo of Reporter's girlfriend is safe and sound and squeaky clean. You're full of shit." Ray teased him with a grin, "I do feel a little bit bad for that actually, now that were on that subject. I gave it to Chaffin, and I think that was how she ended up doing the rounds of the entire Platoon." 

"It's probably best he doesn't get it back at this point, honestly." 

"Too fucking right, dude." 

Well yeah, like he'd said, last he'd seen she had been doing the rounds of H&S Company, and he knew she'd already been all around Bravo before that. He didn't like to imagine the state that the photograph was in by now. So yeah, probably better that Reporter never got it back. While they were on that subject though, he reached down into the footwell for his bag, pulling the skin mag out, "Here, you want Jasmine?" He asked, and Ray just looked at him.

"Oh, Brad, come on. Don't tell me you've been sitting in here jerking off." 

"I wasn't! I just.. I don't want it." He shrugged, attempting his best effort at nonchalance as he tossed the magazine into Ray's lap. He'd wound him up earlier about it, about how he'd get his sloppy seconds with it, but he didn't really want it. He wasn't sure why, he knew there was nothing exactly wrong with it, but he just didn't feel like jerking off over a woman in a magazine when Ray was right there. Whatever, it was.. whatever. He wasn't taking any questions about it.

Ray just looked at him for a moment longer before he grinned, taking the magazine from Brad, "Trombley can have it, I guess." He said, dropping it down into the footwell. He wasn't sure why the fact that Ray didn't want the magazine either caused a curling feeling of.. something in his stomach, he just knew that it did. 

After a moment, Ray glanced out the window of the Humvee before getting out, and Brad just looked at him with an eyebrow raised, "Get into the back." Ray told him as he walked around to Brad's side of the Humvee, before letting the cammie net down. He frowned as his vision of the rest of the camp was obscured as the net was rolled down, turning to Ray's side only to see him letting down the cammie net on that side too, "Ray, we're not fucking in the middle of the camp in the middle of the day just with the nets pulled down." He told him, turning back as Ray let himself into the back of the Humvee instead rather than the driver's seat. 

"We're not gonna fuck, I'm not that stupid. I just want some quality time with my Bradley-Bear." 

He tried his best to bore holes through Ray's skull with his glare at that, although he eventually just rolled his eyes and climbed over the center console into the back seat - although he made sure to jab more than one of his limbs into Ray on the way, "Fucking hell, Brad, I know you're huge but you're not that huge." Ray groused, playfully shoving him as he settled into the back seat with him. 

"Call me that ever again, and I won't hesistate to shoot you myself." He told him, although he didn't push him off when Ray pulled his legs up onto the seat so that he was effectively lying across the back seats, before settling into his lap. He knew that Ray had said they weren't going to fuck, that it'd be too easy to get caught out here, but this was still a pretty compromising position if someone was to catch them. Still, it was rare that they got a moment to themselves, and they were never sure what their next move was about to be. So he wouldn't turn down the opportunity for a little time alone when they could manage to get it. 

He smiled as he accepted the kiss that Ray pressed to his lips, sliding a hand around to the back of the other man's neck to hold him there as they kissed. After a moment, Ray just tucked his head under Brad's chin instead, settling down against him. He smiled as he let his arm drop down until he had it just draped over Ray's waist instead, his fingers idly tracing along the skin of his lower back where his t-shirt had ridden up slightly. He'd shoot anyone who mentioned it, but he rather liked these quiet moments of just being able to lie with their arms around each other. He was looking forward to getting home more than he'd admit. 

"Hey." He murmured after a moment, leaning back slightly so that he could look down at Ray, "Happy Birthday." 

Ray just looked at him for a moment, before a grin split his face as he leaned up on his elbows to look down at him, "Motherfucker, did you do all that 'cause it was my fucking birthday?" He asked. 

"..No, it's- it's quiet, and who knows when we'll next get the time to sit around for this long."

"Yeah, right. You totally fucking did that for my birthday." Ray said with a grin, leaning down to kiss him again. 

He didn't bother arguing at that, mainly because, yeah - he had done it today because it was Ray's birthday. It wasn't like he could have done much more, and he wished that he could have gotten him an actual present or something, but he just.. this was the most he could have done for him out here. They could celebrate properly when they got home. 

"You do realise that this means you're officially not the Iceman anymore, right? You're too much of a softie for that."

"I mean it, Ray, I will fucking shoot you. Birthday or not."

He couldn't help but smile at Ray's laughter though, and he figured that maybe he'd accept Ray thinking he was a softie if it made him laugh like that. 

  
-x-

  
As it turned out, their part in the war wasn't as over with as they had all thought it was. 

Nate had come back from their meeting with Godfather later on that afternoon, with news that they'd be heading into Baqubah - north past where any American unit had gone before. Apparently the troops that were planned for the assault on Baghdad hadn't accounted for their northern flank being as exposed as it would be. Obviously the second Godfather heard that, he'd reminded General Mattis that First Recon were still here and still awaiting their next orders. 

So, they were heading to Baqubah rather than going home. 

He wasn't exactly sure how he felt about the news, really. He was glad that they finally had new orders, but he just.. he'd maybe accepted the fact that they'd be heading home soon enough, and now that looked as though it wasn't the case anymore. They were heading back into bad-guy country, for who knew how long. So he was pretty undecided on how he felt about this development. The bad news though, was that they were being joined by the reservists in Delta Company. Apparently they had caught Godfather on the comms, and had insisted that they join the show. So yeah, fucking wonderful. There was a speck of good news though - which was that they were linking up with War Pig on the initial assault, so they'd actually have some heavy ass accompanying them. Gave him a little peace of mind, that they wouldn't be alone out there. 

The day after they'd been told of the news, they'd set out and later that night had crossed over into the enemy territory. They hit resistance almost as soon as the LAV's had crossed over the so-called 'magic line' into the enemy territory, although it was further down the line than where they were currently stopped. Despite some initial shooting, Brad had ascertained that what they were currently shooting at was a village rather than hostile Iraqi's, and so Bravo had ceased fire - awaiting the LAV's to clear the threat up ahead until they could follow up behind them. Obviously though, Delta didn't get the fucking message, and had soon joined in on the shooting at the village, "We got no comms with Delta." Ray told him apologetically, shooting a shrug over in his direction, "I don't know, maybe the fucking retards will just run out of ammo." He shrugged.

Brad just sighed, trying his best not to grit his teeth, "God damn, this is gonna be a long night."

  
-x-

  
The next morning, there was a shuffle in the order of the convoy. They were instructed to stop while War Pig drove ahead in the LAV's, and to let Alpha pass them while they surveyed the surroundings. Once Alpha had passed, they'd be following up, with Delta in the rear behind them. It made sense, they had been War Pig's back up last night, so now Alpha were taking over for the moment. 

That was how they found themselves on a quick foot patrol of the area, with most of the men hanging back in the Humvee's while Alpha passed alongside them. He was out on foot, as well as Christopher, Trombley, and Garza, weapons raised as they approached what looked to be a set up for a mortar team. Kicking the blanket aside though, it was to find the man underneath it already dead, and he sighed as he assessed the situation, "They got blankets on to hide their heat signatures. Right, Sergeant Colbert?" Trombley asked. 

"A week ago, they didn't know we could see their thermals at night. Now they're adapting." He said with a sigh. The war was supposed to be ending, and yet, the Iraqi's were still adapting to their warfare. It was a little worrying actually, to think about. 

He was about to respond to Trombley's comment of 'didn't work for that guy', when there was a mortar dropped a couple of feet away from them, followed by sporadic gunfire, "Get down!" He shouted, quickly dropping to his hands and knees. 

There wasn't a lot they could do to protect themselves out in the open like this except keep their heads down and hope nothing hit, and they certainly weren't about to start firing back when he was pretty sure that it wasn't even Iraqi's who were shooting at them, "Stay fucking down!" He shouted to the other three who were with him, hoping that they at least had the sense to keep their heads down. 

From what he could see from here, it looked like the shots were coming from one of the Humvee's, although he couldn't exactly see who. It seemed to be Alpha though, considering Captain Patterson jumped out of his own Humvee and ran past the rest of the vehicles to whoever was shooting, screaming at them to 'cease fucking fire'. After a moment, he recognised their own Humvee speeding past where the shots were coming from, and once the shooting had stopped, he raised his head enough to see Ray climbing out of the vehicle, "You dumb motherfucker, you realise you were shooting at Marines?" He snarled, only stopping when Patterson put a hand on his shoulder and gently pushed him back in the direction of the Humvee. 

"Two-Actual, this is Two-One. Who the fuck is shooting at us?" He asked into the radio as the dust settled, raising his head enough to look over at the convoy. 

"Fucking LAPD cops from Delta, man. They fucking love shooting Mexicans!" Garza snapped, and he shook his head as he got confirmation from Nate that it had been a mistake. 

"It was Alpha, Gabe. Alpha. Mistakes happen." 

He sighed as he climbed to his feet once they got confirmation from Nate that it was safe to move, before nodding back in the direction of the Humvee's to the other three men, "Everybody okay?" He asked as they walked back. 

He climbed back into the Humvee once they got to it, glancing over in Ray's direction. He didnt like that the younger man looked as frazzled as he did, but he supposed that he couldn't say much considering how he had reacted when Ray had climbed out of the Humvee in the middle of a firefight. He'd been fucking terrified to see Ray being shot at, so he could understand how he was probably feeling right now. Still, they were in the Humvee surrounded by the rest of the men, there wasn't a lot he could do to reassure him at the moment, "Hey, it's okay." He said softly, biting his lip gently. 

Ray eventually just nodded, although Brad could see the way his Adam's apple bobbed as he swallowed thickly. Like he said though, there wasn't a whole lot he could do in this moment. 

"Come on, focus. We're covering Alpha's assault."

  
-x-

  
Eventually, they reached Baghdad.

He was a little fucking worried about the size of the city, and the fact that there was still a hell of a lot of unrest going on behind the borders of the city. There were rumours though that since Baghdad had technically been liberated - since Saddam's regime had fallen - that they were nearly done here. The country was still fucked up though, it was fucked when they got here, and he was pretty sure that they were leaving it just as fucked. That wasn't for him to decide though, it was his job to go where he was told and to follow orders. 

Still, he'd kind of accepted the fact that they were done here. And so now, he just wanted to get his men home without anything else happening. They were nearly done, he was pretty sure he wouldn't be able to live with himself if they pulled some stupid stunt at this point and lost somebody. They were so fucking close. 

Walt seemed to have been doing better though, which he was pretty grateful for. The last thing he wanted was for that incident with the car to have broken Walt, and for them to have to put him on some sort of suicide watch. Walt was a good kid, he had a girl waiting for him back home - one that Brad was pretty sure he was going to marry and spend the rest of his life with, so he really didn't want for him to lose all of that over one mistake. 

For now though, his worry had moved on to Ray. Nothing had exactly happened, per se. But he just.. he could see the way Ray had quietened right down, the way he was acting far more subdued than he had throughout this entire deployment. Like he'd said though, nothing had actually happened, but he'd be keeping an eye on him for the moment. 

For now though, they were stopped at a cigarette factory, joining the rest of the Marines who'd arrived in Baghdad twenty-four hours ago. It seemed safe enough, according to Nate, but they were warned to keep their PPE on at all times and to keep their guard up. Just because they weren't out in the middle of the fighting didn't mean that they could suddenly afford complacency. 

They'd taken Reporter out on a foot patrol around the perimeter of the factory, just to check out the perimeter and make sure there were no cracks that could lead to an ambush. It was simple enough, safe enough of a mission that Nate had said they could bring Reporter along with them - himself, Nate, Rudy, Poke, and Lovell. Not long into the patrol though, there came the zip of sniper fire shooting past them, and they ducked behind a stack of barrels that were against the wall there. 

"Sniper, he's in front of us." Lovell explained to Reporter, pointing out where the sniper was likely to be firing at them from, "You can only hear it that clearly when you're directly in front of the rifle barrel. That zip means it's passing a few metres from our ears."

"One at a time." Nate told them, glancing up at the open space where they'd have to run through, "Colbert, go."

"Bounding." He announced as he took off, running directly to the curve of the wall where they could take proper cover, "Set." He called back, once he'd reached the wall. He was joined by the rest of the TL's one by one, until Reporter was eventually given the clear to go. Instead of following their lead though, he took off running in a zig-zag motion, and Brad frowned as he watched him. Eventually Reporter made it to them though, and they were joined soon after by Nate. 

"Reporter, what the fuck was that?" He asked with a grin, lowering his rifle to look over at the other man. 

"Serpentine, Shel, serpentine." He said, before sighing when the TL's just looked at him, "Y'know, the movie 'The In-Laws'? Peter Falk tells Alan Arkin 'always run in a serpentine fashion'. I was running evasively."

"Next time we come under fire, run in a straight line. You'll live longer." Lovell told him, drawing a laugh from Poke and Rudy. 

"And have a full happy life of betraying us and others with your venal lies." He added, grinning when he saw the smile that his words drew from Nate. He was glad that Nate seemed to have relaxed a little. There'd been a while back there that he'd been very fucking concerned about the LT, and he knew he wasn't the only one that had been feeling that way. It seemed he'd gotten over whatever it was that had had him wound up so tightly. 

"Come on, let's get this over and done with." Nate told them as they started off again. 

  
-x-

  
The next day, they were billeted into one of the towns, ordered to do patrols of the streets. 

Their orders now were to keep the peace, to try and help the people with their requests. Unfortunately though, there were a lot - unexploded munitions in people's gardens, no running water, lack of electricity, broken phone lines, ransacked hospitals, bandits robbing homes at night. 

They wanted to help, he knew that they all did. 

Unfortunately though, they were moved onto another town almost as soon as they'd started trying to help. And another town the day after that. And another the day after that. 

They weren't actually doing any help whatsoever, and he knew that they were all trying not to think too hard about that. They were staying long enough to listen to everything that the civilians needed, long enough to promise them that they could try to help, and then they were being ordered out of that town and into another one to do the same thing all over again. It was fucking ridiculous, and he knew Nate was livid. 

Hell, they all were. 

  
-x-

  
Another day, another fucking town. 

They weren't swarmed with people this time around though, they were mostly left to their own devices as they patrolled the streets, and he sighed as he walked along with Poke and Ray. It was awful really, looking at the ruins of what used to be somebodies house before it was fucking blown to pieces. The people were still here though, trying to scrape by on what was left behind. 

He did feel slightly better though, as he'd managed to successfully take out some ordnance in a garden by performing a controlled detonation. He knew that Ray and Poke hadn't been happy about it while he'd set up the detonation with their det-kit. Realistically, he knew he could have blown himself up, but he liked to think that he knew what he was doing. He just.. this was something he could do to help. They'd been fucking things up all along, and this was one action he could actually do that would help. Kids played in this garden, it was the least he could do after everything. 

Thankfully, he'd managed to detonate the bomb without blowing any of them up, and he smiled as he walked along afterwards with the rest of the men, "Dog, you hear on the BBC today?" Poke asked after a moment, "Some newly arrived grunts slaughtered some Iraqi kids who were playing on blown tanks."

"You serious?" He asked, raising his eyebrows. 

"It's true man, it happened." Leon told him with a sigh. 

"Brah, they were playing on top of the tanks, so the ROE said they were technically armed." Lilley told him, "General Mattis is on the radio saying this is the worst thing in the war so far."

All of a sudden, he could just see fucking red. Kids, playing, and the ROE had said they were fair game just because of where they were? It was fucking bullshit, and not to even get started on General Mattis. He was acting as though this had been a once-off incident, as though they hadn't been accidentally killing women and children since they'd arrived in Iraq. 

"They're screwing this up." He murmured, before sighing and shaking his head, "Fucking idiots, dont they fucking realise the world already hates us?" He snapped, stalking off. He felt a hand on his arm after a moment, and he looked down to see Ray looking up at him, something close to concern in his eyes. He knew that he needed to calm down, but he just.. he was so fucking angry. 

Meesh called them after a moment though, apparently a man had approached him and had told him that he also had another unexploded bomb in his garden. So he just nodded, shaking Ray's hand off his arm, "Come on, we're doing this." He told them, before following Meesh and the man off. The bomb was in the middle of the man's garden - or what used to be his garden anyway, it was more of a hole in the ground now. Still, he jumped down into the hole, ignoring Poke's running commentary on how he used to repo cars back in L.A, and how he was going to write a book called 'nobody gives a fuck'. 

"We keep killing civilians, we're going to waste this fucking victory." He snapped up at him, before sighing as he turned back to the bomb, "We can't keep doing this."

Before he actually got a chance to do anything about it though, they were joined by Nate and Gunny Wynn, and Nate sighed as he looked down at Brad in the hole, "Get out of there, Brad." He told him. 

"Sir, we have another-"

"That's an order."

"Sir, I strongly request t-"

"I will not let you blow yourself up, trying to maintain property values in greater Baghdad." Nate told him, his voice firm as he looked down at him, "That's a no-go."

"Up and out, Sergeant." Gunny Wynn told him.

"Get out of the hole." Nate told him again, raising his eyebrows at him when he didn't move. Eventually, he sighed, nodding as he climbed up and out of the hole. He was a little pissed actually, he'd have thought that Nate would have understood his need to do this better than anybody. He was the one who'd admitted to them that they had done nothing but fuck things up ever since they'd arrived back in the country, and now that he was trying to do something to unfuck one out of a million fucked up situations that they had caused, Nate was ordering him to stop? 

"We're done here, Brad." Nate told him again, before walking back off with Wynn, Poke following off after them. 

He sighed as he watched them go, shaking his head before he tore his helmet off, sitting at the edge of the hole he'd climbed out of. What was the point? How had they helped these people if they were leaving an unexploded bomb in their garden, where a child could fall onto it and set it off? It seemed that all they were doing was fucking things up, and not doing anything to try and fix their mistakes afterwards. 

Ray joined him after a moment, offering him a small smile as he dropped down to sit at his side, "I know it's fucked up." He said quietly. 

He just shook his head, looking over at where he'd dropped his helmet on the ground, "It's useless, is what it is. Someone is gonna die because that bomb was left there, we all know it."

"I know." Ray murmured, leaning his head against Brad's shoulder after a moment. He sighed as he leaned into his touch, letting Ray take one of his hands between both of his and linking their fingers together. It wasn't much, he knew it wasn't, but at least they had this. 

He sighed as he pressed a quick kiss to Ray's hair, before pulling his hand back, "C'mon, we should get back to the others."

  
-x-

  
Twenty-one days. That was apparently how long it took to take down a country. 

  
-x-

  
They were officially done. 

They were back at another warehouse today, where they were told to simply wrap things up and take inventory of the equipment that was left in their Humvees. Tomorrow, they'd be driving back down to Kuwait, where they'd be stationed back at Mathilda for a couple of days until they were sent back home. 

He wasn't sure how none of them had been killed, how they had managed to make it home with all of the men in their Platoon intact - well, he knew Pappy had been sent home already, but at least he was still alive. He was pretty sure a lot of that had to do with Nate though, and how he'd refused to send them out on bullshit missions that would only end with getting somebody killed. They all owed their lives to him, he knew that.

He was sat with Walt, Ray, and Trombley in the yard beside the warehouse, having already emptied out their Humvee and were taking inventory of their equipment and ammo. Well, he, Walt and Trombley were. Ray was.. not doing a whole lot, if he was being honest. It made something tighten in his chest to see him like this, to see him looking so dull and lifeless. He wasn't used to it, was all, and it made him wonder if Walt was really the one that they should have been keeping their eye on lately. He couldn't lose Ray to this at this point, not when they were finished, and all was left for them was to go home.

He was interrupted by his train of thought by a gunshot beyond the perimeter, and Walt asking what the fuck had that been. Apparently, there were snipers set up to shoot wild dogs that were roaming the perimeter. 

"See, Sergeant." Trombley pointed out, "We do shoot dogs in Iraq." He told him, before taking a bite of a roll of charms he pulled from his pocket, offering it out to him afterwards. Despite his bleak mood, he couldn't help the smile that spread over his face at that. Cocky little motherfucker. 

Nate had stopped by shortly afterwards, to update them on the injuries Bravo Three had sustained last night. Apparently, Alpha had turned down some bullshit mission to mark a minefield at night, and so Captain America had agreed to the mission. Nobody had been killed, thank fuck, but one guy had taken some shrapnel to the eye, and another one was apparently going to lose his leg from the knee down. Bullshit, they were done here, and yet this shit was still happening. 

"Oh, this war has an official name now." Nate told them as he was leaving, "Operation Iraqi Freedom."

He sighed as he watched Nate walking off, before biting his lip gently, "I don't miss anything from home." He said. He wasn't sure why felt he needed to get that out, but he just.. he did, "The only exception is my bike, I miss that. Speed, solitude, and no one can touch me." He shrugged. He knew nobody was really listening though, he just.. he felt he had to say it. 

He glanced up at Ray after a moment though, before sighing, "Hey, where the fuck did you go? You haven't said two words since Baghdad." He asked. He knew he'd probably been a little sharp with him, but he just.. he needed to know what the fuck was wrong with him. Walt knew about them, yeah, but he couldn't afford softness out here in front of the other men. 

Ray just glanced in his direction though, before shrugging, "No more Ripped Fuel." He simply shrugged, and it broke Brad's heart a little to see the empty look on his face. He hated that, he hated this from Ray. He'd been what was keeping him sane throughout this entire clusterfuck, he couldn't be losing him now. 

Before he could say anything else on the matter though, Reporter stopped by with his bags. Apparently, he wasn't going to be riding back to Kuwait with them, he was going back tonight and would be shipped back out to the States today, "Well, I'll see y'all." He said as he looked over at them, and Brad just shot him a small smile. He wasn't sure what else they were supposed to say really, and it seemed neither did Reporter, since he just nodded at them again, "Uh.. thanks."

"Stay frosty." He offered, giving him another small smile, before watching him walk off. 

Poke joined them after a moment though, holding up a football, "Hey, yo, we're gonna play some guys from Alpha, you guys up for that?" He asked. 

"Fuck it, I'll play." Ray shrugged, hopping down off the platform he'd been sitting on. 

"Back among the living?" He asked as Ray passed him, and the other man just shrugged. 

He turned to Walt and Trombley afterwards, "Come on, we can do this later. It'll be good for us."

The football game seemed to be a good idea actually. He knew a lot of the guys were bored, and so maybe it would be good for them to actually just play a bit of sports rather than just sitting around waiting to go home tomorrow. It was their last bit of freedom here, so it was good that they were taking advantage of it. They had two weeks of leave once they got back to the States, so he knew a lot of them would be going back home rather than hanging around California. Walt and Ray had agreed to join in the game, while he and Trombley decided to hang back and watch. 

Obviously though, the fact that it was a friendly game didn't stop Encino Man from mouthing off as he usually did, and it seemed Patterson had eventually had enough of it, as he stalked towards the other man and punched him in the mouth. That was.. fuck, it had been a sight. He guessed that that was a long time coming though, that it wasn't just about the game. He was pretty sure that was why nobody said anything more other than to pull Patterson off of Schwetje and let him stalk off in the opposite direction. The game had just gotten out of hand, that was what they were going with. 

Still, he couldn't help but glance at Trombley with a small grin as the game started back up again.

He settled against the side of the Humvee as he watched the men play, watching Ray marking Rudy. Considering Ray was half of Rudy's size though, it wasn't entirely unexpected though when Rudy knocked Ray as he passed. He knew it was nothing personal, that it was only part of the game, but he still couldn't help but wince slightly as Ray went down. Seemed like he'd gotten him good. What he wasn't expecting though, was for Ray to drag himself to his feet and go after Rudy, tackling him to the ground. Before he even realised what had happened, Rudy had Ray in a headlock and was delivering punch after punch. 

The other men were quicker to action than him though - Jacks held Rudy back while Garza dragged Ray off the other man, "You goddamn fucking piece of shit." Ray screeched as Garza held him back, "Rudy, you fucking PTSD psycho, you're just like every other jock piece of shit in highschool." He snapped, before shoving Garza off him, "Get the fuck off of me!" 

Thankfully, Garza did what he was told, and Ray stalked off in the other direction once he'd been let go. He couldn't help but follow after him, his stomach dropping at the way Ray roughly scrubbed at the tears streaming down his face as he went. He didn't think it was anything personal, that Ray's anger wasn't directed totally at Rudy, but he just.. he knew they should have seen this meltdown coming. Ray had been acting off for a while now. He'd been too quiet, too withdrawn in himself, they should have been expecting something like this to happen. 

"Ray." He murmured as he followed him, "Hey, you alright?" 

"Fucking leave me alone." Ray snapped as he turned on him, his voice thick with tears. 

Walt passed him after a moment though, biting his lip gently as he glanced up at Brad, "I'll handle this." He told him, clapping Brad gently on the shoulder as he followed off after Ray. He knew it probably was best to just leave him for the moment to cool down. He knew he wasn't really angry at him, that he was just pissed off in general, and if he was being honest? Walt was probably better equipped to handle this - considering Ray had been the one to put him back together when he'd been at his lowest. 

He'd be fine, or he hoped he would.

Didn't mean that he didn't worry though. 

  
-x-

  
Later on that evening, they retreated back into the warehouse once the temperature dropped, mainly because it was just too fucking cold to be roaming around outdoors once night fell. 

Besides, the football game had dissolved like a sugar cube in a glass of water after Ray had stormed off crying, so he figured there was no point. Rudy had wanted to go find Ray, to apologise to him, but he'd told him to leave it for the moment. Walt had already talked to him and assured them that he was okay, and so right now, he knew Ray just needed a little time to himself to calm down. 

He'd be fine. He hoped so anyway.

Right now, he was sat with Nate, Mike, and the rest of the team leaders - although he wasn't exactly listening to what they were discussing. He'd finally gotten a jalapeno and cheese MRE, and so most of his attention right now was focused on that. Besides, he was pretty sure they were talking about some sort of religious shit, which he really couldn't have cared less about, "All religious stuff aside, the fact is that people who can't kill will always be subject to those who can." He shrugged as he spread some cheese on his cracker, glancing up at Nate afterwards. 

The other man didn't get a chance to respond though, as Chaffin called the men over to look at Lilley's movie that he'd finally finished. Most of the men did gather around the laptop, although Brad sighed as he settled further into the seat he was sat in. He'd maybe watch the movie eventually, but he just.. right now, he had no desire to revisit all of the shit that they'd done. He knew there was a lot of footage of the guys goofing off together, but he also knew there was a lot of footage of how they'd fucked up the country. He wasn't exactly in the mood of seeing all the dead women and children on tape. 

He gave Nate a small smile before the other man walked off with Wynn, leaving him alone. 

If he was being honest though, that was fine. 

After a moment though, he glanced up as he noticed that he was being approached, although he was surprised to see that it was Ray coming towards him. He hadn't actually seen him since he'd stormed off the football field earlier, and while Walt had assured him afterwards that he was okay, he hadn't been able to shake that feeling of worry. Still, he looked better though, and he was wearing a sheepish smile as he held a Styrofoam cup out to Brad. 

He took it, looking up at Ray with a hesitant smile of his own, until the younger man smiled and rolled his eyes, shooting a wink at him as he went to join the rest of the men in front of the laptop. 

Yeah, he was pretty fucking relieved to see that he was okay. 

He dragged himself to his feet after a moment though, with the intention of taking a walk. He was fine, he just.. wanted to be somewhere else right now. It was all very crowded, and he just needed a little time to clear his head. 

He walked until he came to an abandoned stairwell near the back of the warehouse, yawning as he leaned back against the wall. Well, that was it. They were leaving Iraq in the morning, and this time next week? They'd be back home in the States. He knew it had all been bullshit though, that they'd done more harm than good during this whole thing. So he was maybe just a little relieved that it was over. He wasn't totally sure what his plan was though, for when they got home. He knew he'd have to take a couple of days and go up to San Diego to see his parents, but that was about it. He and Ray hadn't exactly talked about what would happen - and he guessed that the younger man was probably heading back to Missouri for a couple of days to see his own family - but he meant after that. 

He was snapped out of his thoughts by someone knocking on the wall though, and he looked up to see Ray approaching him with a smile, "Hey."

"Hey." He answered with a smile of his own, holding a hand out to him, "You alright?"

"Yeah. Look, I'm sorry about earlier, I didn't-"

"Hey, hey. You don't have to explain yourself to me." He told him, pulling Ray to him once he'd taken his hand, "Once you're okay now."

Ray just smiled, letting go of his hand so that he could put his arms around his waist instead. In return, he smiled as he draped his arms over Ray's shoulders, looking down at him. For a moment they just stood like that, and Ray tucked his head under Brad's chin. He could feel Ray's breath against his collarbone like this, and he couldn't help but smile as the thought crossed his mind that their heights were well suited to each other like this, "Hey, war's over." He murmured after a moment of silence, and Ray leaned back a little to smile up at him. 

"Didn't we agree that we could be together once we went home?"

"Yeah, I guess we did."

"We didn't exactly do a good job of keeping our hands off each other though, I gotta admit." Ray pointed out with a grin, and he couldn't help the laughter that bubbled up in his throat in response. Yeah, he supposed they hadn't. He thought back to the day that they had been deployed, when he'd first found out that his RTO was the man that he'd met and slept with only days beforehand. Back then, he'd told Ray that their relationship while deployed had to be strictly professional, that he couldn't be worrying about him while they were out here. 

That was before he'd fallen in love with him though, so he supposed he couldn't really be blamed for breaking his own rules. 

He just turned them around so that Ray's back was against the wall behind them instead, grinning as he looked down at him, "Well, I did say we could have this once the war was over, didn't I? War's over now." He shrugged. It wasn't really, not by a long shot, but their part was. 

Ray didn't argue with that though, he just leaned up on his toes to press their lips together in a kiss. 

They were out of danger, finally, he could stop worrying that every time he kissed Ray that it would be the last time, that the younger man was going to be taken away from him by a stray bullet. They were safe now, and so he let his relief pour into the kiss as he pressed his fingers into Ray's hips, pulling him against him. He was pretty sure Ray felt the same though, since he could feel him smiling into the kiss. He pulled back from the kiss after a moment, although he didn't go far, trailing his mouth down to Ray's neck instead. He knew he couldn't leave marks, not yet, but he could still drag his teeth gently along the skin of his neck, as a promise as to what would come. 

He was distracted from his actions though, by the sound of somebody clearing their throat behind them, and Ray suddenly pulling at the back of his t-shirt, "Brad.. Brad." He muttered.

When he turned around, it was to find Nate and Gunny Wynn watching them - the latter harder to read, while it was obvious that Nate was just pissed. He quickly let go of Ray, but he knew that they were caught, that there was no bullshitting their way out of this situation. Fuck. 

"Sergeant Colbert, a word?" Nate asked, although Brad knew that he wasn't really asking. So he just followed him off to another room, glancing back in Ray's direction to see Mike already talking to him, although he couldn't quite make out what was being said. 

Once he and Nate were alone, Nate didn't waste any time in turning to him with a livid looking expression on his face, "Brad, what the fuck?" He asked. 

He knew there was no bullshitting his way out of this, that it was pretty fucking obvious what Nate had walked in on. So he just shrugged, looking over at him, "What d'you want me to say, sir? It's what it looks like."

"That was what I was afraid of." Nate sighed, shaking his head. If he was being honest, that sick feeling had set into his stomach again. He knew that Walt wouldn't say anything, and even though he trusted Nate as a friend? He was both his and Ray's direct superior. He might have felt that it was his duty to report this, and Brad didn't even want to think of that possibility. "Ray is young and reckless, I can understand that. I would have expected a little more sense from you." Nate told him, and he hated that he could hear the disappointment in his voice. It reminded him of when he was a child, and his mother would tell him that she wasn't angry, she was just disappointed. 

"How long has this been going on?" Nate eventually asked when he still hadn't said anything. He wasn't sure what answer Nate was hoping for, really. It would have been easier to say that it was a once-off thing, that it was just about sex and that it wouldn't happen again. Still, he couldn't bring himself to say that, to brush off what he and Ray had. 

"Since before we deployed, sir." He answered, just looking back at Nate when the other man raised his eyebrows at him. 

"Since b- what?"

"I met Ray a few days before I was even attached to the Platoon. Neither of us knew that the other was a Marine at the time, and we didn't find out until I met the Platoon before we deployed."

"And you never said anything once you did find out?"

"And what, have Ray transferred to a different unit? That's not fair on him, sir, and we both know it." He told him. Of course the thought had crossed his mind at first, but he knew he couldn't come up with some excuse to have Ray transferred out of Bravo Two. He'd worked hard to get to where he was, and it really wasn't fair to undermine that just because they had slept together before they'd found out they were to be in the same Platoon. He knew that he couldn't have given Nate a heads up and just asked him to keep Ray in the same unit though - because his judgement as a TL would have been under scrutiny the whole time they were over here. Still, he'd managed to not let his emotions get the better of him - for the most part anyway - and they had all gotten through this alive. 

Nate just sighed, rubbing a hand over his mouth for a moment, before shaking his head, "Brad, as your friend, I'm happy that you have somebody, I am. But just.." He sighed again, biting his lip gently, "You need to square this away for now. You're lucky it was me that caught you and not somebody who would report this, 'cause if it came down to it? You're the one that would go down over this, not Ray." 

The thing was, he knew Nate was right. Ray was out shortly after they got back to the States anyway. He only had a couple more weeks until his term was up, and then he'd be out of the Corps. It wouldn't make much of a difference to him if it got out that he and Brad were sleeping together. He knew his career would be ruined though, and that there'd probably be some pretty serious action taken, considering he was Ray's direct superior. 

"Sir-"

"It's up to you what you do behind closed doors, and I hold no judgement to you whatsoever for that. But just remember that you're a Marine, and that DADT is still a thing."

That was.. the issue really. He knew he'd promised Ray that they could be together once they got home, but it still wouldn't be the same. They couldn't actually tell people that they were together, they couldn't walk down the street holding hands, he couldn't introduce Ray as his boyfriend, and honestly? Was that fair on him? Ray could do what he wanted once he was out of the Corps, which was only a matter of weeks. He could tell people that he was gay, he could flaunt a boyfriend however he wanted, to whoever he wanted, without having to worry about the consequences. But only if that boyfriend wasn't Brad. 

So he just swallowed thickly before nodding, biting his lip gently as he looked over at Nate, "Yessir."

Nate just looked at him for a moment longer before nodding, giving him a small smile, "Just keep it under wraps, okay? I don't want you getting in trouble for this."

"I know, thanks Nate."

They walked back to Mike and Ray together, and Nate nodded at Mike to leave them to it. Ray didn't look as though Mike had told him off, but he did look slightly sheepish, "So." He mumbled, once the other two men had left them, "Are we in trouble?"

"Not exactly.. I did get a bit of a lecture though."

"Thought so. You okay?"

He just nodded, biting his lip gently, "Yeah, come on, let's get back to the rest of the guys."

  
-x-

  
By the time they made it back to Kuwait and back to Mathilda, he'd pretty much made his mind up. 

He hated the conclusion that he had come to, but realistically he knew that it was the best one. What he and Ray had may have been real, but he just.. they couldn't do this anymore, and he knew it. Ray was so open with his affection and his emotions, and he deserved somebody that he could be with out in the open. It wasn't fair to ask him to keep that entire side of him hidden just because Brad had to. 

So yeah, he had a bit of a sick feeling in his stomach, but he knew what needed to be done. 

Thankfully, Nate hadn't said anything more on the issue, and he was hoping that it would stay that way. He didn't want to have to explain to Nate that he'd taken what he'd said into consideration, and that he was currently just trying to come up with the easiest way to break Ray's heart. God, he just.. he fucking hated this. He wanted nothing more than to take Ray as soon as they got back to the States and just run off somewhere with him, hide away just the two of them for the next two weeks. He knew that they could, realistically, but then in two weeks time they'd have to report back to Pendleton, and that was when it would all become real again. 

They'd have to go back to pretending that they were just friends, that he didn't love Ray like he did. And he wasn't sure that he could do that if he let himself have those two weeks with him. 

So he managed to find him during a quiet moment the evening after they'd gotten back. He knew that ending things now would only mean that they ended up being stuck together at Mathilda for the next few days until they sent them home, but he just.. he couldn't sneak around with him for the next week or so, knowing that he was only waiting to call this whole thing off. He knew it would be awkward, but Ray deserved more than that, so. 

He found him sitting with Stiney and Q-Tip in their tent, the three of them quietly playing cards together. There wasn't a whole lot more to do around camp actually, considering they were just waiting to be sent home. It wasn't like they had maps to study or ROE to memorise, so he knew a lot of the men were pretty bored, "Ray, a word?" He asked as he approached them, biting his lip gently. The three of them glanced up in his direction for a moment, before Ray nodded and climbed to his feet, tossing his cards down. 

He walked off with him until they found an area that was secluded enough. It wasn't as though they had to be totally hidden though, so this was good enough, they just had to be out of earshot of the other men, "What's up, homes?" Ray asked once they had stopped, putting his hands in his pockets. He looked tired, Brad couldn't help but notice, but he looked.. fuck, he looked happy too, and Brad hated himself for what he was about to do. 

"Brad.." Ray said again when he hadn't answered him, seemingly guessing that something was up. 

He swallowed thickly as he looked at the ground, before looking back up at Ray, "Ray, this has to end." He told him. He figured it was better not to beat around the bush here, to just get to the point of what he'd wanted to talk about. 

"This.. as in-"

"Us."

Ray just looked at him for a moment before dropping his gaze, scuffing his boot in the sand. He just, he wished that he'd say something, that he'd give him some sort of indication of how he felt, "Did I do something wrong?" He eventually asked, looking up at Brad. 

Of all the things that he'd expected Ray to say, that certainly hadn't been it, "Wh- no, Ray. No. It's just.."

"Just what?"

"Nothing changes when we get home. I know we've got two weeks of leave after this, and I know that you're leaving the Corps soon, but I'm not. Once you're out, you can do what you want, with whoever you want. But I can't."

He wasn't sure what to make of the emotions that were showing on Ray's face, but it seemed that he couldn't quite make sense of what he was hearing, "So.. you're breaking up with me 'cause we can't bone in public?"

"Can you please take this seriously?" He asked, looking over at him. 

"Fuck, Brad, what d'you want me to say? I knew shit was gonna stay the same, I knew you weren't leaving the Corps any time soon. I don't have a problem with that, why do you suddenly have a problem with it?"

"Cause you deserve better than that. You deserve someone that you can show off in public.. that you can take to barbecues, and weddings, and shit like that. I'm not that person, I can't be that person for you. I'm a Marine, and I still want to be a Marine in twenty years time, and I can't ask you to pretend for that long."

"Brad.."

"No." He said softly, shaking his head, "The other side of it is that I can't risk my career like this. This is all I want to do with my life, and being with you will put that at risk. If it got out that I was sleeping with a man, that I was sleeping with one of my Corporals, no less.. I'd lose all of this, and I can't do that."

Ray didn't say anything at that, although Brad had to steel himself a little when he noticed him blinking back tears. He didn't want to hurt Ray, he'd never wanted that. He knew he'd maybe been a little harsh there, but it was the truth. He loved Ray, but he couldn't risk his entire life for him like that. 

Ray eventually just sniffled, scrubbing roughly at his eyes with his sleeve, and all of a sudden Brad was back on the football field, watching the younger man storming off with tears in his eyes, "Did you forget the part where we loved each other? Is that not enough?"

Honestly? His heart broke at that, because he knew that it just wasn't enough. Not this time. All of a sudden though, he was reminded of just how young Ray really was. How.. naive was the wrong word, but something along those lines. He wanted nothing more than to assure Ray that it was enough, that they could just forget he'd said anything, and that they could work out the details another time. Cross the bridges when they came to them. He was thinking realistically though, he had to, and he just didn't know how they were supposed to make this work out in the real world. 

The only outcomes he could think of if they tried to make this work, were that Ray eventually got bored of the secrets and the lies and was the one to end this, or that they eventually got caught and Brad's whole life went down in flames over it. He really couldn't see any situation where this had a happy ending for them. So he knew that this was the only option they had. 

He sighed as he reached out to him, although he dropped his hand when Ray stepped back out of his reach, "I wish it was enough, Ray. I do."

"But it's not?"

"No."

At that, Ray just nodded, shoving his hands in his pockets again. He hated that he could see right through the front that he was putting up, that he could tell just how upset he was, despite the fact that he was acting as though he wasn't, "Alright, well.. I'm gonna go play with the radios for a while, I promised Nate I'd take a look at the broken ones before we shipped home, and I still haven't yet, so.."

"Okay." He said with a nod, biting his lip gently. He could see that for what it was, an excuse to get the fuck away from this conversation, "Are you okay?"

"Nope, but I got shit to do, so." He said with a shrug, before walking off. 

Brad just sighed as he watched him go, shoving his own hands in his pockets as he stood where he was for a moment. Well, he'd succeeded in making himself feel extremely fucking shitty about the whole thing, but what else was he supposed to do? He knew what he had to do, and he'd tried his best to do it without hurting Ray too much. 

He knew they just needed a little time to try and get over this. 

Now that he thought about it though, he was pretty sure the undercarriage of the Humvee could use a little TLC, and he could use a little space away from everybody else. 

  
-x-

  
The following days at Mathilda were pretty much what he'd expected. 

They were kept busy with packing up, with getting their shit ready to go home, so he was grateful for that much at least. Meant that he had less time to sit around feeling sorry for himself, trying not to remind himself of how he'd hurt Ray's feelings. From an outside perspective, it probably wouldn't have looked as though anything had happened. Ray was quieter than usual, but that had been going on ever since they'd reached Baghdad. He was pretty sure the general consensus on that was just that the younger man was still out of Ripped Fuel. He did catch Walt looking at him sometimes though, as though he wanted to say something to him about it, and he had no doubt in his mind that Ray had told him what had happened. Nate remained purely the professional over it though, which he was glad of. He really didn't want to have to talk to anybody about it. 

Eventually though, their plane arrived to take them home. If he was being honest about it too, he was very relieved that this was all over. He hadn't really gotten a second to think about it all while they were here, but he was tired. He was tired of the way they'd been jerked around for weeks, at how they'd been told that they were doing their jobs and that they should be proud, when all they had done was fuck things up even further in a country that had already been devastated by war. It wasn't a great feeling, and he was more than ready to go back home and shut all of that away in the back of his mind. 

Besides, he knew this two weeks of leave would be good for himself and Ray too. The damage was done, and he knew the wound was still raw, but two weeks away from each other would hopefully help. They'd be reporting back to Pendleton after that, and could hopefully go back to just being friends until Ray's term was up. After that - well, he just knew that he didn't want to never see Ray again. 

They could work something out. 

He yawned as they boarded the plane, Marines dropping into seats around him as he made his way through the plane. He bit his lip gently as he passed where Ray and Walt were sat in the aisle together, giving them a small smile as he continued on a couple of rows past them before dropping into the seat next to Jacks. He at least got a tight-lipped smile from Ray in response, so he was counting that as a step in the right direction. 

The flight was long and painfully boring, and he had regretted sitting beside Jacks almost as soon as he had - mainly because Chaffin was in front of them, and he had turned around to them for nearly the entirety of the flight, to bitch about Jacks' wife with him. Not that he didn't agree, but he just didn't want to have to listen to it. He'd debated getting up and finding another seat, but he knew that really, the only person he wanted to be crammed into a small space for hours on end didn't exactly want to be near him right now. He couldn't blame him either, so he just sucked it up and slouched into his seat as well as he could, trying to tune out Chaffin and Jacks. 

Eventually they touched down in the States, and they were put on a bus that would drive them back to Oceanside. This time though, he made sure to slide into the seat next to Doc. He'd always liked Doc, had always admired his quiet competence, plus his no-bullshit attitude. He'd actually been secretly delighted when word had spread throughout the Platoon that Doc had told Encino Man to his face that he was incompetent to lead the company. 

Once they reached Pendleton though, they were on the go almost as soon as the bus doors opened. Obviously there were families waiting there to welcome the men back, although he didn't bother hanging around since he knew his own family wouldn't be there. He knew they would if he'd wanted them to be, but he'd promised his mother that he'd come up to see them the day after he got back to the States. She'd argued, obviously, but he'd asked her to please do this for him. He just.. he'd rather see them at home, back when he wasn't in uniform. 

Nate had pulled him aside with an apologetic smile shortly after they'd gotten off the bus, "Brad, hey. Sorry to ask this already, but I need you to fill out these DD-40 forms before you head off, didn't get a chance before we left." He asked him, the aforementioned forms in his hands. 

"Yeah, sir. Not a problem."

He was somewhat glad for the distraction actually, meant he had a chance to take his mind off things. He knew they'd be busy for the next couple of hours with turning in their MOPP suits and rifles and whatnot, but at least this gave him something to do while the rest of the men greeted their families. 

By the time he'd finished filling out the forms, he headed back to the others, finding Nate to give him the forms before trailing over to where Walt and his girlfriend were standing with Poke and his family. He couldn't help but smile actually, as he watched Poke with his two daughters. He'd shown him photos of his family, his wife Gina and his two daughters Jessie and Daniela, but it was different seeing him actually with the girls. Even Walt looked happier than he'd ever seen him, his arm around his girlfriends waist, "Hey, Brad. This is Laura." He said with a smile as Brad approached them. 

He just smiled, accepting the hug that Laura gave him when he had reached them, "So you're the great Sergeant Colbert." She said with a smile, and he huffed out a breath of laughter as Walt rolled his eyes, "Thank you for keeping him in one piece over there." 

He just nodded, giving her a small smile, "We all kept each other in one piece." He said with a smile, before turning his attention back to Walt, "You see Ray around?" He asked.

Walt sighed, shaking his head, "Nah, he's gone already. His sister was here, they didn't hang around long."

"Oh, right.. okay." He said with a nod, plastering on a smile. He wasn't even sure why he had been looking for Ray, if he was being honest with himself. Just to say goodbye, he guessed, seeing as they wouldn't be seeing each other for the next two weeks. Still, maybe it was better that he'd just left. 

"Alright, well it was good to meet you guys." He said with a smile before heading back off. 

Well, there was nothing left to do after that except to head back home. 

  
-x-

  
The house was as he'd left it, more or less. The only difference that he noticed upon arrival was that the plant in the corner of the kitchen was gone - he assumed Megan had probably forgotten to water it and it had died. Well, he wasn't overly attached to it anyway, so it didn't bother him all that much. 

There was a stack of mail on the kitchen table for him, and when he checked the freezer it was to find it stocked up. He wished his mother wouldn't do that, he was perfectly capable of stocking up his own kitchen. Still, he knew telling her that wouldn't make an ounce of difference. He supposed he was just glad that she seemed to have only stuck to the freezer - that she wasn't stocking up his cupboards with bread and milk that would likely have only gone off while they were waiting on him to come home. He hadn't told them exactly when he'd   
be home after all, considering he hadn't known the exact date himself. 

Figuring he'd call her later to let them know that he was home, he simply switched the coffee machine on for now and made a start of sorting through the stack of mail while he waited for the coffee to brew. 

  
-x-

  
He made it four days before he cracked.

He tried his best, he really had. 

He'd gone down to San Diego the day after to see his family, and he'd ended up staying the night in his parents spare room, after spending the evening out on the back porch with his dad and Megan. It was nice actually, he knew that he'd missed them while he was away, but he just hadn't realised exactly how much. His mother had cried when he'd showed up at their door, and he sighed as he wrapped her in a hug. Alright, whatever, he knew that when he was in his uniform, he was the Iceman. But when he was home, he was a bit of a mama's boy. 

Once he'd gone back up to Oceanside the following day, he'd spent the following day cleaning the house and doing grocery shopping. Like he'd already said, he'd dumped the last of his bread and milk before he'd left, plus he was running short on shit like shower gel and toothpaste. 

After that though, he wasn't really sure what he was supposed to do with himself. He'd tuned up his bike and had taken it out for a spin, he'd gone running, he'd waxed his surfboard and had spent one of the evenings out on the waves, and now? He was bored. 

He knew what he wanted to do, or where he wanted to be, rather. But he just.. he wasn't sure he could do that. He'd made his decision when it came to Ray, he'd already hurt him enough. But he just.. fuck, he knew what he wanted. So like he'd said, he made it four days before he picked up the phone and dialled Walt's number. He bit his lip gently as he waited for him to pick up, before smiling when he heard the younger man's voice over the phone, "Hello?"

"Walt. Hey, it's Brad."

"Hey, what's up? How you doing?"

"Good. Just trying to keep busy, I guess. How are you?"

"Yeah, good. You going out of your mind with boredom yet?"

"A little." He admitted, huffing out a breath of laughter. Well yeah, it was the truth, "I wanted to ask a favour actually. Do you know Ray's address in Missouri?" He asked. Walt was quiet over the line, and he wondered for a half a moment if he'd hung up on him. He supposed he probably would have deserved that much, Walt was Ray's best friend, and he'd already guessed that Ray had told him what had happened. After another moment of silence, he sighed, about to ask if Walt was still there, before the other man spoke up again. 

"Brad, if I give it to you, can you promise you won't fuck him over?"

He knew he'd deserved that, that he had already fucked Ray over and that Walt was just trying to protect him. "I promise, Walt. I just.. I need to see him."

Walt was silent again for a moment before Brad heard him sigh over the phone, "Yeah, okay. I'll text it to you, okay?"

"That'd be great. Thanks so much."

As Walt had promised, his phone beeped a moment after he'd hung up, signalling a text message. After some quick research, he booked himself a flight to Kansas City International Airport for later on that afternoon. The flight itself was three hours long, and since Missouri was two hours ahead of California - it worked out that he would be getting in to Kansas City at about ten at night. After that, Ray's house looked to be about a twenty minute cab ride from the airport. He didn't think that that was too late, or so he hoped anyway. 

After that, he just packed himself a bag. He wasn't sure how long to plan for in that sense, but he figured packing for around two or three days was probably a safe bet. He knew there was no guarantee that Ray would even let him in, that he'd want to talk to him at all, but he just.. he had to try. He'd made up his mind though, he was going to at least go to Missouri, and even if Ray didn't let him in and told him to fuck off? He could at least say that he'd tried. 

  
-x-

  
By the time he made it to Missouri, he'd already made his thumb bleed by chewing nervously at the nail, and he was pretty sure that the woman sitting next to him on the plane had been about to kill him for bouncing his knee pretty much the entire flight. Whatever, he couldn't help it. He was nervous. It sort of just hit him as the plane landed that he was actually doing this, that he'd actually flown all the way to Missouri to beg Ray for his forgiveness. 

Because of the time, he didn't have to try too hard to get a cab, and he showed the driver the address on his phone as he got into the cab. It seemed he was right about his time-guessing, because it was only a little over twenty minutes later that the driver pulled up outside a row of houses, "This it, son?" The driver asked as he looked out the window at the houses, and he smiled and nodded, "Yeah, thanks." He said, paying the fare before he climbed out of the cab with his bag. Honestly? He had no idea, but Walt had said that this was the address. He doubted Walt would have lied to him about this. 

So he sighed as he approached number seventeen, biting his lip gently as he knocked on the door. He had a bad feeling about the fact that the lights were off, considering it was nearly eleven at night, but he was hoping for the best. Surely Walt would have mentioned if he knew Ray wouldn't be home, if he'd gone somewhere other than Kansas City? He hoped so anyway. 

Resigning himself to the fact that Ray wasn't home after he'd failed to open the door, he sighed as he dropped his bag on the porch before sitting on the steps up to the porch. He'd give it to midnight before he gave up and went looking for a motel to spend the night at. Maybe it was a sign though, the fact that Ray wasn't here. He tried not to think like that anyway, but he really couldn't help it. 

It was about thirty minutes later, and he was busy playing snake on his phone, leaning back against the rail of the porch steps, when he heard footsteps approaching him.

"Brad?"

When he looked up, it was to find Ray watching him with a frown. He supposed he should have expected that, considering he hadn't exactly called to warn Ray that he was coming. He'd wondered if maybe Walt would have, but he hadn't told Walt when he was planning on coming - so even if Ray had known that he was coming, he probably wouldn't have expected him right now. He was a little caught off guard though, seeing the other man in civilian clothes rather than his cammies. The only other time he'd seen him dressed like this had been the night that they'd first slept together, and the day following that. He looked good though, dressed in jeans and a dark blue polo t-shirt.

"Hey, uh.. hi."

"The fuck are you doing here?" Ray asked, still wearing that same frown. Well, that answered that question, it seemed Ray had no idea that he was coming. 

"I wanted to see you. Walt gave me your address."

Ray just looked at him for a moment longer before shrugging, fishing his keys out of his pocket as he passed Brad on the steps to open the front door. Since he hadn't been told to fuck off, he figured it was probably safe to follow Ray into the house, and so he swung his bag up onto his shoulder as he trailed after him into the house. 

By the time he'd reached him, Ray had walked through to the kitchen, and he took a second to just look at his surroundings as he dumped his bag in the corner. The house was pretty much what he'd expected from a townhouse in Kansas City. It was small enough for one person without being overly cramped, and he was surprised to see that the place was actually kept pretty tidy. He couldn't help but think of Ray back in Iraq, covered in MRE milkshake or the ravioli he'd brought for them for Ray's birthday - it felt like a world away at this point. Either way though, he'd expected the place to have looked a little upended. 

"How long were you sat out on the porch?" Ray asked after a couple of minutes of silence, handing a cup of coffee over to him. He just shrugged, biting his lip gently as he looked down at the mug, "Thirty minutes, give or take. I was gonna wait until midnight before giving up and looking for a room somewhere else." He answered with a shrug, "Where were you?"

"I went for a walk. Was gonna go for a run, but I'd only showered this evening so I didn't want to get all gross again."

"Yeah, I get that."

They lapsed back into silence after that, and when Brad glanced back in Ray's direction, it was to find the younger man watching him with an expression that he couldn't quite make out. He hated that, he hated that he couldn't immediately tell what he was thinking - he'd learned to read Ray like an open book when they'd been in Iraq, and he knew that Ray had done the same. They had barely had to speak to know what the other was thinking. 

"Brad, why're you really here?" Ray eventually asked, biting his lip gently. 

"I don't know." He admitted with a shrug, "I wanted to talk to you."

"You couldn't have called?"

"I didn't know what I was supposed to say over the phone. I still don't, I just.." He trailed off, sighing again. He'd figured that the words would come to him when he was in front of Ray, but now that he was here? He still didn't know what he wanted to say. Well, he knew what he wanted to say, but he just couldn't tell how his words would be received. It was a good sign that Ray had let him in at all, but that didn't necessarily mean that he wanted to hear the words that Brad wanted to say. 

Eventually Ray just sighed again, before shaking his head, "Fuck it." He muttered under his breath, before leaning across the distance between their two chairs and hauling Brad into a bruising kiss. It didn't take him too long to get with the picture, and he brought his hands up to cup Ray's face between them as he kissed him back. 

The kiss quickly turned filthy, and Ray climbed into his lap after a moment, a knee either side of Brad's hips on the chair as he continued to kiss him, "I believe you made me a promise?" He asked, dragging his mouth down to Brad's neck, where he scraped his teeth over his pulse point, "I vaguely remembering you promising that you were gonna take your time with me once we got home, that you were gonna fuck me so hard I wouldn't remember my own name?"

That was right actually. After he'd watched Ray nearly being shot - when he couldn't resist the urge any longer to get his hands on him - and they had snuck around behind the tent to get each other off. He'd wished at the time that they had the luxury of taking their time, of making it something more than sticking their hands down each others trousers. They really couldn't have afforded it back there though, so he'd told Ray exactly what he was planning on doing with him as soon as they were home. That was before he'd ended things, but how and ever. 

"I intend to keep that promise, if you show me where your bedroom is."

Ray climbed off his lap at that, taking his hands and pulling him to his feet too. His bedroom apparently wasn't too far from the kitchen, and he pressed Ray against the wall once they had gotten there, leaning down to kiss him again as he rolled his hips against Ray's. After a moment of this, Ray pulled back from the kiss to push Brad's t-shirt up until he dragged it off the rest of the way, Ray pulling his own t-shirt off too. 

He'd seen Ray shirtless when they'd been deployed - of course he had, it was impossible to spend that much time in such close quarters with somebody and not see them shirtless at one point or another - but the last time he'd seen him shirtless in this scenario had been the night that they'd met. That was back when they were just Brad and Ray who'd happened to meet at a bar, they weren't Sergeant Colbert and Corporal Person yet - at least not to each other. It was easier back then, and fuck.. he couldn't help but wish that things hadn't changed in that respect. He wondered what things would have been like if Ray hadn't been a Marine. He'd given him his number before he'd left   
that evening, and Brad had promised to call him once things had settled down. He probably would have, even though he'd told himself at the time that he probably wouldn't. He liked to think that Ray would have been waiting for the phone call, that he'd be happy to hear from him once he eventually had called. 

He was snapped out of his thoughts by Ray pushing him just far back enough that he could get his hands between them, pulling Brad's belt off before undoing the button and zipper on his jeans, "I know you said you'd take your time, but fuck that. Get naked now." He told him as he shoved Brad's jeans down around his thighs. 

They managed to lose the rest of their clothes by the time that they made it back to the bed, and Ray dragged him down onto the bed with him. He ran his fingers through Ray's hair as he kissed him again, pushing his knees apart with his other hand so that he could fit himself in between his legs, "Have you got condoms?" He asked, looking down at him. He hadn't exactly thought to pack any, mainly because he hadn't assumed that this was going to happen once he got here. He'd assumed that either Ray would tell him to get the fuck off his porch and go home, or that they'd simply just talk.

Ray just looked up at him for a moment, biting his lip gently, and Brad frowned down at him in response, "What?"

"I mean.. I do, but.. I had a medical exam before we shipped out and I'm clean, and you were the last person I fucked, so.."

"You don't want me to use one?"

"Look, if you're clean too, then no, I don't. Okay?" Ray snapped, and he wasn't quite meeting Brad's eyes as his face flushed slightly. He was pretty surprised at that actually, but he certainly wasn't going to say no. So he just leaned down to kiss him again, gently biting down on Ray's lower lip, "Yeah, okay. You do have lube though, right?" He asked. 

Ray leaned over to the nightstand then to rummage in the drawer for a moment, dropping the bottle of lube on the bed beside them once he had retrieved it. He busied himself then with pouring some over his fingers, while Ray wrapped his legs around his hips. After that, he didn't waste any time with pressing a finger into him, adding a second and a third once he was sure he could take it. Apparently he'd been the last person that Ray had slept with, and that had been.. two and a half, three months ago. So he didn't want to just go for it and hurt him. Still though, it was hard to keep his head together at the sound of Ray's moans, at how his breath caught in his throat as he touched him.

Once Ray assured him that he was ready though, he pulled his fingers out and quickly wiped them on the sheet. He went to line his cock up, before stopping when Ray pushed lightly at his chest, "What?" He asked, looking down at Ray who just bit his lip gently, "Get on your back." He told him. 

So he just did what he was told, rolling off Ray and onto his back instead, letting the younger man straddle his hips, "Fuck, you're such a sight." He murmured, reaching up to fit his palm around the curve of Ray's cheek, who just smiled and rolled his eyes. 

"Shut the fuck up, Brad." He muttered, although he turned his head slightly to press a quick kiss to his palm. 

After that, it was like the urgency kicked up again, and Ray reached back to steady Brad's cock as he slowly sunk down onto him, a moan caught low in his throat as he did. Brad just resting his hands on Ray's thighs, letting the younger man control the pace at which he took it. It was easier this way, meant Ray could decide how fast to go without hurting himself. Eventually, he'd sank down the whole way, and he took a shaky breath as he settled fully in Brad's lap, "Fuck, I forgot how big your cock was." He murmured, hanging his head as he let himself get used to the feeling. 

He propped himself up on his elbows as well as he could, reaching up with one hand to guide Ray back down into a kiss for the time being. Eventually though, Ray huffed against his lips, sliding his hands down Brad's chest so that he could brace himself as he slowly started to rock his hips. Fuck.. even that was a lot right now. It wasn't his fault, it had been a while. Combat jacks had kept them going over there, but it really wasn't the same thing. Besides, everything felt twice as intense without the condom between them.

They moved together, hands gripping and pressing, panting into each other's mouths. Fuck, this was all he'd thought about ever since they'd been deployed. 

After what had to have been only a matter of minutes, Ray scraped his teeth over the tendon in his neck as he jerked his hips, and that was enough to push Brad over the edge - to have him arching his hips up against Ray's as he came. Fuck, he just.. fuck. After a couple of moments where he tried his best to put his brain back together, he at least remembered to close his fingers around Ray's cock, pulling him down into another kiss as he jerked him off. 

Thankfully it wasn't too much longer before Ray was coming too with a moan against his mouth, and he dropped his forehead to Brad's collarbone for a moment as he fought to catch his breath. He just stroked his hand gently through Ray's hair, his other hand around his waist as he guided him up and off his cock, gently tipping him to the side, "Where's your bathroom?" He asked, trailing his fingers gently along his cheek, before glancing in the general direction that Ray had waved in. 

He quickly ducked into the bathroom to grab a washcloth and dampen it, bringing it back to the bed to clean them off, before dropping it back over the side of the bed. After that, he slid in next to Ray again, biting his lip gently as he looked over at him. Ray just looked back at him, his brown eyes tired as he blinked in Brad's direction, "Go to sleep." He told him, giving him a small smile, "We'll talk in the morning."

Well yeah, he knew that they probably had a lot to talk about. 

He tried not to think the worst when Ray turned his back to him, although he couldn't help but smile when he reached back after a moment to take Brad's hand, pulling it around his waist as he turned back around. So he just settled in close behind him, pressing a quick kiss to the back of his shoulder as he settled down to sleep.

  
-x-

  
When he woke up the next morning, he was facing the opposite direction as the one he'd gone to sleep in last night. 

He could feel the heat of Ray plastered against his back though, his arm around his waist and his face tucked against his neck. His initial reaction was to complain that he was the Iceman - that he didn't do this 'little spoon' shit. Still, he had to admit though that it was a rather nice feeling actually - he was warm and comfortable, and so he just settled back into Ray's embrace. 

This was the first time he'd actually woken up beside him, now that he thought of it. Obviously they couldn't afford to do this in Iraq, and the first night that they had slept together in Brad's house, Ray had already been up by the time that he'd woken up. He remembered that initial feeling of disappointment when he woke up alone and assumed that he had already left, only to find him out on the back porch with a cigarette and those ridiculous sunglasses that had somehow followed him to Iraq. 

After a moment though, he realised that Ray was idly trailing his fingers along his stomach, and so he guessed that he was probably already awake. He turned enough to just glance back over his shoulder, giving Ray a small smile when he saw that he was watching him, "Hey."

"Hey." Ray mumbled back with a small smile of his own, his voice still thick with sleep. He hummed as he turned around fully so that he was facing Ray instead, bringing a hand up to run his fingers through Ray's hair. He wanted nothing more than to lie here with him all morning, to just settle back down to sleep for another couple of hours with Ray's arms around him. Still, it was weighing pretty heavily on his mind that he'd promised him that they'd talk in the morning - and he guessed that it was probably on Ray's mind too.

"I guess I promised you we'd talk."

"Yeah.. you want coffee first though?" Ray asked, and so he just nodded. At least that'd give him a little time to think about what he wanted to say. 

He watched Ray as he climbed out of the bed, pulling a pair of boxers from the drawer before pulling them on. Okay so maybe he was admiring the way the muscles in Ray's back moved, the way he stretched his spine and rolled his shoulders as he walked. He'd lost a concerning amount of weight while they were away - they all had, he knew they'd all been lean enough going over there, and then when the supply truck had been burned, they'd been living off one MRE a day for a good few days. It was no wonder that they'd all come back a hell of a lot skinnier than they had been going. Still, Ray was still gorgeous though, he could admit that much. 

"Hey." He murmured after a moment of watching him pottering around the bedroom, "Come here."

Ray came to sit on the edge of the bed after a moment, a hesitant expression on his face, although he didn't complain when Brad leaned over to press their lips together in a kiss. He hummed as he kissed him back, leaning into his touch slightly as Brad cupped his hand underneath his jaw. After a moment though he pulled away, biting his lip gently as he looked over at him, "I thought we were gonna talk first?"

"Yeah.." Brad murmured, before shaking himself out of it, "Yeah, we should. Sorry."

He let Ray dress himself then without any other distractions, and he just pulled on his jeans and t-shirt that he'd been wearing yesterday before he followed the younger man out into the kitchen. He ran his fingers through his hair as he sat back on the bed for a moment, trying his best to unfuck his thoughts. As much as even thinking about opening up and talking about his feelings made him want to turn tail and run, he knew that this was probably the only chance he'd get to fix things between himself and Ray. He'd fucked up, he knew he had, and so he knew that refusing to talk about whatever last night had been would only be the final nail in the coffin. 

So on that note, he followed him out to the kitchen, finding Ray leaning against the counter as he waited for the coffee to brew. As he attempted to come up with something to say to actually start this conversation, Ray just sighed and shook his head, "Y'know what, Brad? Fuck you." 

He was a little taken aback at that actually - he knew Ray was still a little prickly with him, and he couldn't say he blamed him, but he hadn't exactly been expecting that, "What?"

"You heard me, fuck you." Ray snapped again, before rolling his eyes, "You don't get to do this, okay? You promised me all along that we could be together once we got home, and then you dumped me a week before we were due to go home. You don't get to just show up here in the middle of the night and expect things to go back to how they were before. Last night was.. it shouldn't have happened." 

He didn't really know what he was supposed to say, if he was being honest. He knew he deserved it though - what Ray had said was the truth, and he knew that he'd hurt him. So he just shrugged, biting his lip gently, "I know, I understand that, but Ray I.." He trailed off as he searched for his next words, and he sighed as Ray just looked at him with a guarded expression - as though he was expecting to be hurt again. 

"I love you." He eventually settled on. He knew that he'd assured Ray before that he felt the same way, but this was the first time that he'd actually said the words. He didn't do sappy declarations of love, he'd never been like that, but he knew that it was now or never, "I came here because I wanted to apologise for all that shit I said back there." 

When Ray still just looked at him, he sighed, running his fingers through his hair, "Everything I said still stands; it wouldn't be easy. I mean.. we wouldn't be able to let on that we're together. We can't tell people, I can't hold your hand in public. When Walt eventually gets married, we can't go as each others' dates. Are you sure that that's what you even want?"

"I want you, Brad. Whatever way I can have you. Fuck, I love you, okay? And I know you're an emotionally stunted retard, but if you love me too then I'm willing to compromise to make this work."

"I do love you. Shit, you have to know that I do. I know I said that it wasn't enough, and I'm so sorry for that 'cause it is enough. I want to be with you, but I understand if I fucked this up." He said softly, chewing at his lower lip. Well yeah, he knew he'd hurt Ray, and so he really couldn't blame him if he didn't want him back.

Ray just looked at him, before he cracked a small smile and ducked his head slightly, "Does this mean you're asking me to be your boyfriend, Bradley-Bear?"

"I thought I threatened to shoot you if you ever called me that again?" He asked, although he was smiling too. He held a hand out to him after a moment, pulling Ray towards him once he had taken it, "I'm sorry." He said again once Ray had settled against him, putting his arms around his waist, "But yeah, I guess I am asking you that."

"Aw shit. Then I guess I'm sorry, 'cause it means you're gonna be stuck with me forever."

"I'm okay with that." He said with a small smile, leaning down to kiss him again. He hummed as Ray leaned up on his tiptoes to wrap his arms around his neck, pulling him a little more down to his height as he kissed him back. Yeah, he found he was actually very much okay with that, mainly because he just hadn't been sure if he'd get that chance. He'd been so worried that he'd fucked this up beyond repair, that Ray would want nothing more to do with him once his term was up.

"Do you really want that coffee?" Ray asked after they'd pulled apart from the kiss, although he kept his arms around Brad's neck, running his fingers through the shorn hair at the back of his head. 

"Why?"

"Cause I really need a shower, and I really think you should join me."

He couldn't help but grin at that, and he just nodded, "Alright, lead the way." He said with a smile, letting Ray drag him by the hand towards the bathroom. 

  
-x-

  
Later that evening, he went for a run. 

Ray had told him that he needed to call his mom, so he figured he'd get out of the house for a while and give him a little privacy to talk to her. He didn't mind, he'd sort of gotten into the routine of going for a run in the evening anyway, and now he just had a change of scenery rather than taking his usual route around his own neighbourhood. 

So he'd kissed him goodbye before heading out, plugging in his earphones. 

He just, he couldn't have been more relieved that everything had panned out the way it had. He knew Ray would have been totally within his rights to tell him to get the fuck out of his house and not come back. Once they reported back to Pendleton, Ray only had a little over three weeks left of his term, and then he was free of the Corps - he would have been able to get through that, and then he'd never have to have seen Brad again if he didn't want. So he just, he was glad that he'd forgiven him for being a total ass. 

They probably still had a lot to work out - like the fact that Brad lived in California, and that Ray would probably be coming back here permanently once his term was up - but maybe they could just try to take it one day at a time, to actually cross those bridges once they came to them. He didn't think that that was a viable option, but maybe they could make it work. He wanted to at least try anyway. Ray had said that he wanted him in whatever way he could have him, and if he was being honest? He wanted that too. So if Ray was willing to compromise in order to make this thing work, then he could at least try to do the same. 

Still, what mattered though was that he loved Ray, and that Ray loved him too.

He headed back after about an hour, after having really pushed himself for the last fifteen minutes or so. By the time he made it back to it back to the house, the back of his t-shirt was soaked through, and he was panting to catch his breath. It had felt good though, to get out and go running. He was used to the route back home, so he'd enjoyed getting to change it up a little. 

He could hear Ray still on the phone as he let himself in, so he figured he'd keep quiet until he was finished with the call. It didn't sound as though he was talking to his mother anymore though, and he was proven right as he walked in through to the kitchen - to find Ray out on the back step as he spoke on the phone, "Hey, Walt, what's up?" He asked, the phone in one hand and a cigarette held loosely in the other. 

It seemed he hadn't noticed Brad coming in, so he just leaned against the counter with his hands in the pockets of his shorts, smiling as he looked out at him. 

"He did, yeah."

"Yeah, he's here now. Well, he's not here here, he's gone out for a run. But yeah, he did show up."

"No, it was like eleven thirty last night, I got home and he was camped out on my front step."

"Yeah. Yeah, he apologised, we're fine now."

"Course I did, what'd you expect me to do? I know it won't be easy, but like.. he's worth it, y'know?"

He couldn't help but smile at that, and he grabbed a bottle of water from the fridge before trailing out onto the back porch, smiling at Ray when he noticed him, "Oh, hey, he's back now." Ray said into the phone with a smile, before mouthing 'it's Walt' at him. 

Brad just waved in response, before pulling his t-shirt off to bunch it up and wipe his face with it. 

"He says hi." Ray told Walt over the phone as he watched Brad, "Yeah.. yeah. Look, he just took off his shirt, I'll text you later." He told Walt, before hanging up the phone. Brad just tossed his shirt in Ray's direction once he'd put the phone away, before dropping down next to him on the step that he was sat on. 

"Were you and Walt gossiping about me?" He asked with a grin. 

"Yeah, dude, totally." Ray said with a grin of his own, before pushing lightly at Brad's shoulder, "Actually, go back over there for a second."

"Uh.. why?"

"Just.. do it!" Ray insisted. 

After a moment, he just did what he was told - standing up from the step again and going over to the other side of the porch, where he turned back to Ray. The younger man just looked at him for a moment, and Brad swallowed at the way he was letting his eyes roam over his body, before he grinned and held his free hand out to him to coax him back over, "What was that about?" He asked as he trailed back over to him, sitting back next to him on the step. 

"Nothing, I just wanted to objectify you for a minute." Ray teased, playfully pushing him with his shoulder, "Come on, you look like a fucking model, and you're standing there all shirtless and sun-kissed, it's totally unfair to the rest of us."

"Shut the fuck up, Ray."

"No, I mean it. How the fuck did I bag myself a specimen like you?"

He just smiled and rolled his eyes, leaning over and pressing a quick kiss to his lips rather than dignifying that with an answer. He didn't get it, if he was being honest. Ray was pretty hard on himself sometimes, despite the fact that he was a hell of a catch himself. Objectively, he was gorgeous - with his dark features, and his tattoos, and his dimples - but it was his stupid charming personality that had drawn Brad in in the first place.

They just sat in silence for a little while, Ray leaning his head against Brad's bare shoulder as he finished off his cigarette. Eventually though, he lifted his head, and Brad glanced down at him with a smile, "Actually, I thought of it earlier, and I forgot to ask." Ray started, turning to face him a little more, "I gotta do some grocery shopping tomorrow. So, why don't you come with me, and we can drive down to Nevada? Go to the Walmart there?"

"Why? I thought there was a Walmart here?" He asked, raising an eyebrow as he looked down at him. Well yeah, Nevada was over an hour's drive away - he didn't really see the point in driving all the way there just to go to the Walmart, when he was pretty sure he'd seen one while he was in the cab on the way here. 

"Because, homes. The Walmart in Kansas City doesn't have my photo up on the Walmart Wall of Heroes."

He just looked at him for a moment, before a grin crept over his face as the words registered in his mind. Fuck, yeah. He'd forgotten that Trombley had brought that up when they were driving in the Humvee actually - the fact that Ray's mom had stuck his photo up on the Nevada, Missouri, Walmart Wall of Heroes. In his defence though, he hadn't been totally listening to that conversation - he'd just paid attention long enough to point out that he'd disown his mother if she ever distributed his photograph without his written permission, which had prompted Ray to point out that his biological parents had already disowned him by putting him up for adoption. Yeah, shit.

He smiled, rolling his eyes playfully, "Yeah, alright."

"Awesome."

"I am going to make so much fun of you for it though, I hope you realise that."

"Shut up, Brad."

  
-x-

  
Two days later, they were sitting stretched out on the couch together, Brad half watching the television while Ray tapped away at his laptop next to him, his legs stretched over Brad's lap. 

It was nice actually, this casual intimacy that they had. He really couldn't imagine being this comfortable with anyone else like this. When it came to relationships, he'd had his guard up ever since Katie had left him, and he certainly hadn't expected to ever fall for someone else again like that. Even that first night when he'd slept with Ray, he'd totally expected it to just be a one night stand - he didn't think the younger man would've made as much of an impact on his life as he had. So he just, he was glad to have him around. 

They'd taken a drive down to Nevada yesterday and gone to the Walmart, and honestly? With the amount of things Ray actually bought, Brad was pretty sure that he hadn't even needed to go grocery shopping, that he'd just said that as an excuse to drag him down to Nevada so that he could show him his photo on the wall. He'd teased him for it, obviously, but he'd never admit that he actually found it a little sweet that Ray had just wanted to show him the photo. He wasn't really sure what sort of photo to expect, but once they got there; he promised himself that he'd never admit to Ray how a little part of the Iceman may have melted at the sight of it. He'd been done up in his dress blues, smiling proudly at the camera, but it was just how young Ray had looked in the photo that had caught Brad off guard. Apparently he'd just turned nineteen when the photo was taken. Ray had shrugged afterwards and said that maybe it was stupid that he'd dragged him all the way down here just for that, so he just took his hand in the car and told him that he was glad he'd brought him to see it.

"Hey." He eventually murmured, turning down the volume on the television as he turned to Ray, "Have you thought about what you're gonna do once you're out of the Corps?" He asked. 

"Oh, dude, I have no fucking clue." Ray shrugged, closing the laptop and moving it over to the coffee table in front of the couch. 

"You're probably gonna come back here though, right?" 

Ray just looked at him for a moment before shrugging, running his hands through his hair, "I haven't even thought that far ahead, if I'm being honest." He shrugged, biting his lip gently, "I'm open to considering other options though." 

Well yeah, he supposed that that why he'd brought this up at all. He didn't like the idea of Ray coming back here permanently while he was still stuck in Oceanside. If he wanted to though, he'd totally support him on that - he wasn't here to tell Ray where he should and shouldn't go. But since he'd said that he was open to other options, he figured that there was probably no harm in at least asking. Worst case scenario, he'd say no. So he just shrugged, biting his lip gently as he trailed his fingers lightly along the line of Ray's shin, "You could stay in California, if that was something you maybe wanted? I've got space at my house." 

He was focusing more on the loose thread at the rip in the knee of Ray's jeans as he spoke, rather than looking at the other man. He just.. he was maybe a little embarrassed that he was even asking. He knew what he wanted though, and he knew that things rarely tended to just fall into his lap unless he asked for it. So, he figured he'd man up and just ask. When he glanced back up in Ray's direction, it was to find him smiling at him, and he frowned as he looked over at him, "What?" 

"Nothing, just.. you're the one who wanted to keep this a secret, Iceman. How are you planning to explain me moving in with you?" 

"Well you're gonna have to pack up your room at barracks when your term is finished, right?" He asked, waiting for Ray's nod before he continued, "You could say you wanted to stay in California, and like I said; I've got space in my house. We could do up the guest room like your room, no one has to know which bed you sleep in at night. If you wanted." 

Ray just smiled at him again, before pulling his legs back off of Brad's lap. After a moment though, he managed to rearrange himself on the couch, and then Brad found himself with a lapful of Ray, as he settled down with a knee either side of his hips, "You do realise that you've ended every sentence by asking me what I wanted?" He asked with a grin, "What d'you want, Brad?" 

"I want you to move in with me." 

"Yeah?" 

"Yeah, fuck it. Move in with me." He said with a smile, sliding his hands around until his arms were around Ray's waist, "I want you there with me, all the time." 

He knew he'd made the right decision, just by the way Ray smiled brightly down at him as he cupped his face between his hands. He loved when Ray smiled like that actually - it made him look young and carefree, and he'd happily admit that he was totally gone for the way his dimples carved deep into his cheeks, "Jesus Christ, you really are Big Gay Brad, aren't you?" He asked with a grin, before ducking his head down to press a quick kiss to his lips, "I do want that though. Fuck, I really want that. I was looking for an excuse to sell this place anyway." 

"Sell it then, and move all your shit into my house." 

"Fuck it, yeah. Let's do it." He said with a smile, leaning down to kiss him again. They just kissed for a while, and it was lazy and unhurried - neither of them rushing to make it anything more than that. Eventually though, Ray pulled back from the kiss, and he just huffed as he looked down at Brad, smiling softly down at him.

"What?" He asked, pushing his fingers underneath the hem of Ray's t-shirt to press them along the strip of bare skin above the waistband of his jeans. 

"Nothing. Just.. I love you." 

Yeah, that was what really mattered, he supposed. He was pretty sure it wouldn't be an easy ride - he knew they'd probably have their fare share of bumps in the road with trying to keep this thing a secret, but also make it work at the same time. He wanted to put the effort in to making it work though, because the alternative was losing Ray, and he was pretty sure that that wasn't an option he could live with. 

At the end of the day, Ray was a Whisky-Tango, cretinous subhuman, and Brad was so fucking in love with him. 

So he just smiled, biting his lip gently as he looked up at him, "I love you too." 


End file.
